Wishcraft
by DreamsWhenAwake
Summary: If your favorite characters suddenly appeared in real life. Aria is a normal teen then suddenly poof Syaoran, Kurogane, and Fai are there. But all is not right! What is this supicuous power in the hills. Did anyone ever say Sakura got all her feathers back? Post series. Some maybesortakindanotreally Kurofai. FIN!
1. Chapter 1

**Author's note **

This is my first fan fiction ever, so please bear with me! I apologize for any stupid typos and/or grammar/spelling mistakes. Ummm I don't really know what to do . If anybody bothers to read this I LUV YOU aneleven better if you rate and reveiw *wink wink* so...I think that's it for now. Enjoy!

~3

* * *

It was hot. But then, it's always hot in Southern California during summer time, and it was that type of hot that required yummy food. So, Aria was perched on her kitchen counter eating fresh strawberries and drinking lemonade.

Aria looked out the window smiling at the beautiful day outside. The sky was a perfect, cloudless blue. '_Ah. Sky blue, just like Fai's eyes.' _She thought, laughing at herself because of the sentiment. It was just a manga for goodness sake, but she couldn't help feeling like she new all the characters and honestly, her love of Tsubasa was getting a little excessive. Syaoran, Sakura, Kurogane, and Fai, oh yes, and Mokona too; she loved them all and now after finally finishing the series, she didn't really know what to do with her life, especially now that both her parents and brother were out of town and she was left with the house to herself. I mean, one can only read so many post series fanfics.

"God, I'm hopeless", the teen mutters, musing over her own obsessiveness. Aria hops down from the counter (she as always preferred to sit _on top _of things, rather than properly in a chair) and went back upstairs to her bedroom, she always felt safest there and, with everyone gone, she was starting to get a little jumpy. '_I don't know why they let me stay, _she thought, _sure I'm responsible, and I'm 16 for crying out loud. I'm just so paranoid. My imagination is waaay to hyperactive for this to be good for my health.' _She sighed petting her cat, who was taking advantage of the sunny day by sunbathing on Aria's bed.

"I mean what if Fei Wang appeared out of no where." she asked her cat, "Or, I dunno, what it I get robbed, or...a ghost starts haunting the house." she says. Her cat mews skeptically, as if she was amused at her owner's skittishness.

"Yea, that last one was pretty silly wasn't it?" She says, petting her cat and sitting down on an unoccupied potion of he bed.

"My parents must be crazy." she sighs.

It was her parents twentieth anniversary, and they had wanted to do something special. So they booked two tickets for a tour of Europe, leaving Aria and her brother to fend for themselves. And then her brother jumps of to scout camp leaving Aria all by her lonesome. Sure her next door neighbor would come and check on her every night, but for the rest of the day, She is left all alone, except when she went out to do something. And Aria, being young and hyperactive was starting to be annoyed by the fact that she couldn't really do much and had to clean and cook for herself. Now that was annoying. When her friends found out she was going to stay home alone, they begged and begged her to orchestrate some party, but Aria didn't want to. She was looking forward to time alone, but now, only four days in to the fifteen day trip, she was beginning to think maybe a party wouldn't be so bad.

She picked up her cat and made her way downstairs again, maybe she'd watch some anime, or go creep on Facebook, that sounded fun. Her cat squirmed in her arms, wanting to be let go. She seemed jumpy, almost as if she felt something was off. As soon as Aria put her down she scrambled under the big couch in the living room, causing Aria to frown, this was unusual behavior for her normally friendly, carefree cat.

Aria paused in front of the big hall mirror examining herself. She was short for her age, but had a nice build from taking ballet classes. Her dark hair framed her pale face in unruly curls and the ends of her short hair barely scraped her shoulders. She felt that her eyes were her best feature, big and nearly emerald green, she loved them, but they had a tendency to unnerve people, being so big and green. Someone had once told her that she felt like Aria looked _inside _people, not just at them. This made little sense to Aria, but she like the sound of it. She liked to think she could look like Sakura if her hair was lighter and less curly.

She made her way down to the computer and went to iTunes to play some music, having music on always made her feel better. She scrolled through her playlist. Obscure pop, top 40 songs, vocaloid, K-pop, J-pop, fun(period), some older songs, random songs, songs from animes, more K-pop, the soundtrack from Wicked, Yuki Kajiura, and more top 40. Giving up on selecting a specific songs she set it on shuffle and let the computer chose for her. It was one of her favorite songs, one about love and life and depression and stuff, but it was so pretty, the haunting melody filling the room, filling all the nooks and crannies of the house with the singer's sad longing. Leaving no room for startling noises to emerge.

After searching the web for a bit, the restlessness that had been causing her to keep moving around her house all day came up again and Aria decided to go out back.

Her backyard was awesome. One of her mother's best friends was a landscape artist and had done their yard a while back. There was a rock path looping around the yard from the back porch, through flower beds and a meadow. The vibrant colors of the blooms popping from the yard as if something of a slightly surrealistic painting. But the main attraction of the yard was the giant Japanese cherry tree in the very center of the yard. As a little kid Aria had loved this tree because of it's beautiful, powder pink flowers and it's amazing climb-ability. Now she still loved the tree because of that, but now it was awesome because it was a Sakura tree. So iconically Japanese and Aria had one in her back yard.

Her cat started mewing loudly from underneath the couch. '_I wonder if something's wrong?' _Aria wondered going over to try and retrieve. The cat from under the couch, but as she was trying to get the cat out, the animal ran out from under the couch now bounding to hide in the laundry room.

"The heck..." Aria says, "I don't get it. She's never like this, she's always-" Aria stops, looking out the back window,seeing something that looks..._off. _Opening the sliding door to step outside, Aria is hit with an out of place gust of wind. And the _off_ is becoming more noticeable. Aria hears a loud burst of static then the music cuts off. The air seams to be bending, above the cherry tree a glob of space forming, spiraling down from above the tree, the very _space _seams to be contorting. She's never seen anything like this. Time seams to slow as her eyes widen, rooted to the spot. Her mind rushing over what this could be, searching the reaches of her brain; for an explanation, something,_anything _to explain this. '_Aliens, terrorists, zombies...noo, a space-time anomaly, time travelers.' _She gasps. '_Could It be...' _The globule has reached the ground. Material swirling around showing glimpses of colors. Blue, black, and some brown. Aria stands frozen to he spot, knees threatening to buckle, three figures appear from the air. Two taller ones and one shorter Aria barely has time to take in: bright blue eyes, garnet red, a mess of blonde hair, determined amber eyes, a perpetual scowl, and a suspicious white pork bun. '_No, no way, no way in hell. This can't be happening, it can't IT CAN'T.' _She feels herself slipping out of conscience. The chances of this happening, one in like a gazillion. No this shouldn't even exist. The world fades to black and Aria falls to the ground muttering, "Hitsuzen, my ass.". Right before she possible receives a dangerous injury and slips entirely into subconsciousness she could have sworn that she was caught by a strong pair of arms.

"What did she say?" a gruff voice asks

"Well I dunno Kurgy, but it sounded a lot like 'Hitsuzen something"


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's note**

So here's chapter two(this has got to be the fifth time I've tried to do this-my computer is stupid) I got this chapter up fast for anyone who cares. The next chapters won't come up as fast, because school starts next week, but I hope to have ch. 3 up before then. So belated warning, this is a post series fanfic and there will be spoiler for the end of TRC. Thank you to anyone who reads this! Please rate and review! Disclaimer-I don't own these guys, never will. And if anyone can tell me how toget the liney thing at the end of the note. I did it last time but idk how to!

~3

Chapter two

She dreamt that she was a butterfly. She flew over a turquoise blue ocean, with a hot, tropical sun shining down on the water creating undulating sections of blinding light on the water. Then she was over a meadow of deep emerald green with splashes of magenta, lemon yellow, orange, and perry winkle blue. Then she flew into a temple.

It was a giant, traditional Buddhist temple. The corridors twisted and turned almost like a maze. The butterfly went faster and faster, zipping through corridors, up stair cases. An odd sense of panic begins to fill the insect's brain; it's going much faster than any butterfly should go, the walls of the rooms and hallways blurring into a haze. It keps turning and turning and then: a dead end straight ahead, the insect doesn't have time to react, no time to stop before...

"Wake up" Aria startles awake, she turns to see the person waking her. She's laying on her couch and sitting in a chair next to her was a man. Tall and lithe with long wavy blonde hair pulled back into a ponytail. His eyes were painfully blue, as bright as the sea in her dream. She gasps. 'N_o no no no! This can't be real! It can't be! Is it him? _Her eyes widening in shock.'

"Clam down, okay," says the blonde in a soothing voice, "My name is Fai D. Flourite, I seam to have given you quite a shock. Are you alright?" _He's Fai, oh my god he's _Fai! The room begins to swim again, threatening to give into blackness again.

"I can't..." she says, unwilling to go I conscience again.

"Wait, try some water." a young brunette holds out a glass of water, his amber eyes full of concern. "I'm Syaoran." the teen says, "What's your name" Aria takes the water, holding it gingerly as if it might hurt her.

"A-Aria." she says looking at her reflection in the glass as to avoid looking at the three people in the room. _Three! _She suddenly remembers. She quickly scans the room, and sure enough, leaning against a wall was, "Kurogane" she breaths. The ninja looks up.

"How the hell do you know my name?" he asks. Aria turns to Fai confused, then realizing her mistake, she says, "I-I dunno. I just knew" she said, her brow furrowing, she could tell this was going to be a problem.

"Wait, so your not like cosplayers trying to screw with me, right?" Aria asks.

"Tch, not damned cosplayers again." Kurogane mumbles.

"Nope," Fai says, "we're the real deal, no hoaxes, no tricks" Then something white and fluffy flys into her face and Mokona squeals,"See! See!? I'm Mokona Modoki in the flesh! You think someone could fake this!?" the obnoxious fluff ball begins to jump all over Aria until he was grabbed by Syaoran.

"Hey, don't scare her any more than she is." he said smiling. Aria smiled back nervously. '_How can this be!? That's Mokona all right, but-no I must be hallucinating, this has to be a dream, a dream, yea it's the heat. It's the heat. But even if it's not... I don't think I should let them know that I know them, or at least I think I know them. _She thought. _Can I really believe this? I am meeting them! Is it Hitsuzen? If they exist then Hitsuzen, fate, destiny, it exists.' _She is brought from her thoughts by the sound of her cat purring loudly. Looking up, Aria sees Fai petting her cat, smiling what she took to be a real smile.

"She's a lovely cat. Does she have a name?" Fai asks.

"Oh, yea, her name is Millie." Aria responds.

"Come on its just a stupid cat!" Kurogane scoffed loudly from his corner, " I just dunno how you can love the animal so damn much." he says, Syaoran putting up soft protest that it's just a cat, but then Millie turns her head sharply and begins to growl at Kurogane as if she could understand him.

"What the hell are you looking at cat?!" Kurogane yells, beginning more forward, growling back at the cat.

"Oh calm down Millie, Kuro-poo's just a big meanie, don't pay attention to him." The mage begins to pet the cat cat again, who, after a brief bristling begins to purr again.

"My. Name. Is. Kurogane!" yells Kuro-poo, "No matter how many times I tell you, you won't fucking stop!" the ninja is now right in Fai's face yelling at the top of his lungs.

"One think they'd start keeping track" Aria whispers to herself. Syaoran turns to Aria a bit, it sounded almost as if she new that this happened a lot. He shook his head, it would probably be obvious to anyone.

Aria started laughing at the pair.

"You two are funny." she said laughing. Fai gave her a small smile where as Kurogane just scowled.

"Umm...maybe we should get to know each other a bit. We will be staying in this world for a while, we might as well get along" Syaoran suggests. Giving hopeful looks around the room.

"Okay!" Fai says clapping in enthusiasm that didn't seam to quite reach his eyes. '_Its so weird, I know all his secrets', _Aria thought.

"Well...where to start?", the energetic blonde begins, "Well, as you saw, back in the garden, we came here through magic, wait, is there any magic in this world?"

"Nope, at least none that I know of." Aria responds.

"Oh, okay, well I'll get to that later. First off we should introduce ourselves. As I've already said my name is Fai, I do have some magical power of my own, but nothing too substantial. I enjoy being with others and...there's not really anything interesting about me to tell you." he smiled, "I just like enjoying life to the fullest!" _lies. _Kurogane stiffened a little during Fai's self description.

The ninja was the next to speak. "My name is Kurogane, no matter what the mage says. I serve Princess Tomoyo, you don't piss me off and I am a professional ninja so, again, don't get on my bad side, I have a temper. But," he stops looking so mad, "If you don't piss me off, I don't think we'll have any problems. I even have occasions where I can be almost...nice" he says with the slightest of smiles.

"Hyuu! Kuro-sama being nice for a change!" Fai says, then turns to Aria and whispers, "Don't tell him but I think he likes you!" Fai smiles with an evil glint in his eyes, easily avoiding Kurogane's lunge at him.

"And lastly, there's myself." Syaoran says. "My name is Syaoran. I am studying to be a professional archaeologist and... I have someone waiting for me to get back to my home, so we won't be staying long. Uhh.." Syaoran looks around awkwardly trying to think of something else to say, "Oh! I also like martial arts, and I'm learning sword fighting from Kurogane-san.

"Tch, kid you don't really need lessons anymore." the ninja scoffs causing Syaoran to blush a little.

"But there's still so much more I have to perfect!" he says.

"Well Aria, what about you?" Aria looks up at Fai, taking a moment to digest the question, she had been busy examining them all. It was unbelievable how much they resembled their manga selves. Syaoran had messy dark brown hair and amber eyes. His build lean and strong from martial arts. Fai-she blushes at thinking this-was even prettier as a real person then an animated one. His eyes large and brilliant blue, his long hair tied back with a single black ribbon, but most of it still fell into his eyes. And his hair was a beautiful shade of blonde, very light, but with streaks of darker blondes, some almost reddish. Kurogane was tall, but that was about all she could tell, he was still in full ninja gear. Though she could see his piercing red eyes peeking out from all that black.

"Oh! Well I'm 16 years old and going into my junior year of high school. I have no idea what I want to study in college, but I'm really into art...and dance, and I love to write, and i like to read...manga. I..like the color green, and I get really hyper. And I talk too much." Aria finishes off her babble.

"Do you have a boyfriend?" Fai asks.

"Ah! What?! No!" Aria splutters and before she can ask the question, Kurogane asks, "Why the hell do you care idiot?" glaring at Fai

"I'm just curious" Fai whines, "Is Kuro-pipi worried I'll cheat on you with the cute new girl?" he squeezes Aria's shoulders sticking he toungue out at a very angry Kurogane who was muttering about if he ever gets his hands on FaiHete Mage would be dead meat.

"Hey, guys," Aria says tentatively, "Would you mind telling me why you are traveling through the dimensions?" she sees Fai and Kurogane tense up at this question, while Syoaran just looked sad and to her surprise he answered.

"Well, it's a long story, so I'll just go over the main points." Syaoran begins to tell the tale, starting with Princess Sakura losing her memories and then progressing surprisingly similarly to how she knew it, until Celes. When they got to the part in the story where Fai's past would have been reveled Syaoran turned to Fai who gave a very small shake of the head, he didn't want his secrets told to a complete stranger. And Syaoran proceeded to say that they had been in a great battle and that instead of a _world, _merely a building was collapsing on them. Through the lie of Celes, Kurogane was very tense, looking like he need to hit something. Syaoran ended with how he had to now pay for his existence and was therefore stuck traveling the dimensions. He finished his story, sadly not having cleared up any of the super confusing parts of the story.

"And that's it." Syaoran smiled

"You left out the part when Fa-"

"Not now Kuro-chan." Fai says softy, not looking at the raven. The atmosphere in the room instantly changed, the tension making Mokona whimper, then she regained her hyperness springing out of Syaoran's arms an landing on Fai's head in front of Aria.

"You forgot all about me! I help you travel around the worlds and I am always very popular!" She squeaks

"How long have you been traveling without the princess?" Aria asks.

"Two years and five months, and seven days." Syaoran replies immediately.

"You know it to the day, kid?" Kurogane inquires.

"To the day" The brunette nods, a determined glint in his eye. His determination is impressive, his love for Sakura so true, so absolute, it's admirable. He is so completely dedicated, Aria is a bit jealous. It had been odd; she had always been a little envious of the tsubasa characters for having so much strength mentally, unlike herself always being scared and and just so _normal._

"Nee, so Aria, could we stay here while we're here?" Fai asks, his companions giving him a bit of a glare for asking that right out of the blue. The blonde had a knack for being impertinent, yet still passing for socially acceptable.

"Well, I'm the only one home for the next eleven days, so I have rooms where you can sleep. Syaoran could sleep in my brother's room, and Fai and Kurogane could sleep in the master bed room or the guest room, I'll let you decide who gets which room. Here, I'll give you a tour of the house." Aria shows her guests around awkwardly, still not willing to believe that this was happening, that these three people were real. As she walked through the house she couldn't help noticing that some of the beautiful anime physique carried over to the real world. They were all unusually tall, Kurogane being the tallest at considerably over six feet. In addition to their height, they all had perfect skin, which she noticed with a sizable spark of envy.

Last up on the tour was the front yard. She knew they looked odd, being in they're original clothes, so it would just be a look. The front hard was Aria's garden for the most part and, she was rather proud of it. She opens the door

"MEKKYO!" Mokona yells. Her eyes wide open. Everyone stares, eyes widening. Aria's heart begins to beat faster, adrenaline slowly making its way into her system. Doesn't that mean that one of Sakura's feathers is near...Syaoran pales, there's no way this could be happening, another one of the princesses feathers, how could this be. It was never specifically said they had found them all right?

"What are you playing at pork bun?", Kurogane asks, he tone low and dangerous.

"I'm not playing anything! One's here! One of Sakura-chan's feathers is here!"

End note

So the butterfly dream was a bit if a reference to when in xxxholic Doumeki's grandfather(or someone) talks about someone having a dream that he was a butterfly and then wondering if he was just a butterfly dreaming he was a man. Hope you enjoyed! Sorry of editing was crappy, I was watching Ironman and my computer decided to be stupid.


	3. Chapter 3

**Author's note**

Chapter four! I plan to have at least one more chapter up before school starts next week. And I'm sorry this chapter was just a lot of talking and not much else. Next chapter will be better, I promise! So I hope that I didn't say anything that isn't true about the feathers and the clones. Any constructive criticism or reviews are welcome. A great big giant thank you to those who have reviewed my story, it's so great that you like my story! Please rate and review! Please, it's very encouraging! Disclaimer-I don't own.

~3

I figured out the line!

* * *

Silence. The four of them stood in silence. Shocked utter silence. Fear started coursing through Aria, if a feather was here, would she have to help them? They didn't know their way around and they would need money, and she was already letting them stay at her place!_'What the _hell _am I going to do!?' _

"No.." Syaoran breathed, his face white and eyes large. "But, she must have gotten all her memories back. I mean, she did, didn't she" He looked around erratically, as if the flowers could answer all his questions. Fai and Kurogane simplied stared into space. After two years, and a lot of new water under the bridge, a feather was here.

"But wait," Kurogane started, "There shouldn't be any more feathers. When Fei-Wang died, the images vanished and the feathers were the other Sakura's memories, so… Ya, Let's face it, all that crap when we were in Clow made no friggin sense. At all."

"But my Sakura doesn't have all the memories that the clone had, and also, the other Sakura still lives inside of her, so in a way, the feather would go back to her too."Syaoran pondered, waving his hands as he talked "After all that Fei-Wang did, it's difficult to say if Sakura remembers everything that she should. When my father paid the price of his relationship it meant that the clone Skaura would never remember what we-they, shared." Syaoran continues blushing, "But in the end, they did-somehow-and were sent into a different world, and-"

"Kid, we know what happened."Kurogane cut him off, then Fia added, "It's true that The memory won't quite fit into the world as it is, but in the end, it comes down to weather or not, you think that the princess would want the feather, weather or not it is a good idea for her to have it."

Aria stands, baffled, how could a feather have gotten into her world, for it to be here! She starts to speak, "Well, if you guys want to look for it I can help you around town and stuff. If you are going to be looking around town, you'll need normal clothes, and well- have you ever been here before, I don't really feel like paying for you."

"Well what's this world called?" Fai asks

"Ummm… well this is Planet earth, and the country is the United States of America, but there's a lot of different countries, like England, Australia, Germany, France, Italy, and oh! Have you ever been to a Japan that is similar to my world?" '_If they're been to Japan, that's probably how they met Clamp.' _ She looks around hopefully.

"So, Kurogane's from Japan, but its different from this world, very low tech."Fai says, "And I believe that Yuuko lives in Japan, but you said that there's no magic in this world. But wait, no I think we have been on Earth before, no wait we totally have!" Fai suddenly remembers,"Remember, that comic-con or whatever was at Earth. That was really scary, we were chased by a bunch of people for some reason, we left really quickly, I don't think we even stayed a day. And we have been to Japan, I think. There was a really nice lady, I think she was a manga artist, which was cool" Fai finishes smiling at his memory skills '_That must have been it! They must have met one of them like back in the 90's or something, but did they just take their story and put some people from their others in it? What about Cardcaptor Sakaura, gaaah it's so confusing!'_

"So a simple 'yes' would have done?" Kurogane eyes the mage skeptically

"I suppose, but that would have been so boring" Fai complains to the ninja, causing the latter to roll his eyes at the stupidity.

"You guys don't like keep any clothes or money from past worlds, because, I'm not exactly rolling in dough, and you all look pretty outlandish. I don't think that any of my dad 's or my brother's clothes will fit you, I mean maybe their shirts. But I dunno." She says, sizing them up, her dad's stuff would be too big, and her brother's too small, except maybe for Syaoran, but before she could say this, Syaoran says, 'We, don't keep clothes we usually just wear what we did in the last world. We actually kept money from Earth, Yuuko said that for some reason we might be drawn here a lot. So she made us, well me-she doesn't trust Fai or Kurogane with money-get a, what was it called? Ah, she made me get a credit card, she said it works in any country here We were actually just at Yuuko's just a while ago-that's why we're in our original clothes. I wonder if Yuuko knew about this." Syaoran says innocently, Kurogane was now grumbling about Yuuko while Fai was just smiling stupidly.

"Ok, well that's good," Aria says, "so maybe I could drive you into town and you could get some clothes-"

"No, I don't do cars, they creep me out." Kurogane states bluntly

"Okaaay, well you still need new clothes, Syaoran could be presentable if he took off his cape thing, and I think my brother's stuff might fit you so we should try that first . Fai, well frankly you could probably pull off anything, but what you are wearing isn't exactly appropriate for the weather." She then turned to addresses Kurogane, "And why are you wearing that," she gestures to his ninja gear causing the man to growl, "Actually we should go inside before you attract attention," she says while ushering them I, then continuing, "Are you like, hiding something, do you have a prosthetic limb or something, because you're gonna have to wear one of my dad's shirts, until we buy clothes that fit you."

Kurogane stands looking surprised,"How did you know.."

"A hunch."

"Well I do have a fake arm, but that's not why I am wearing this, dammit I just like these clothes, okay kid, you really do talk to much!" he begins to take off his headgear and cape. Aria tells them to wait downstairs while she picks out clothes for them. Finding some shorts and a dark green shirt for Syaoran, and then she decided to try one of his larger shirts for Fai, a white shirt with blue waves. She then grabbed one of her dad's generic black shirts for Kurogane. Then she sent them off to try them on, they all fit surprisingly well, except Kurogane's; she couldn't help that her dad wasn't a well-built twenty-something.

"Okay, well now that you all look socially acceptable, we should go out and get you some real-actually are you guys cool with this stuff, I'd rather not buy more stuff, and it fits you ok?" Aria asks, she didn't really want to take them clothes shopping.

"It's fine, your brother's stuff fits me pretty well" Syaoran says

"I've worn worse, right Kuro-tan

"….I don't give a crap what I wear, so long as I don't look sissy" Kurogane growls, his scowl worsening.

"Ok, so that takes something off our list. We should probably take a bit of a tour around town to see if Mokona can find any hints to about where the feather is. And I guess that we could do with some shopping around." She pauses for a second, " And like it or not, we are driving!"

"No we aren't!"

"But I am not going to walk around the whole town-it's not _that_ small-and what do you have against cars, no one else has a problem, this is a democracy-not a Kurogane-rules-all-acy!"

"Cars are weird! And I don't take orders from you!" They are glaring at each other now, Kurogane bending down and Aria looking determinedly up at the raven.

"Calm down guys" Syaoran says nervously

"Ya let up on the new girl." Fai chimes in pushing them apart, "Besides,"he adds, "Isn't it more fun for daddy to yell at mommy?" Fai says getting up in Kurogane's face

"Damn right it is! I can't wait for the day I can finally be rid of you." Kurogane yells back at him. Fai steps back, looking surprised and depressed, his blue eyes swimming a bit.

"You don't like me?" Fai asks, wounded, leaving Syaoran and Aria standing bye awkwardly.

"Why should I?! Youre so freaking annoying!" The hurt on Fai's gace turned to anger and disgust.

"Well I guess its all I could expect from a "friend" of mine. It's probably better that you aren't attached to me anyway." Fai sneered

"Hey, Fai I didn't-" Kurogane rubs the back of his neck, embarrassed, avoiding looking at the mage. He opens his mouth as to say something to Fai then turns away and mumbles, "Fuck. Damn it all, let's just go already." He moves towards Aria's car and Syaoran and Aria hurry after him, but Fai just stays there, Aria rushes back and grabs him by the wrist pulling him to the car, they got all situated in the car, then as soon as they pulled out of the driveway Mokona gasps,"I don't feel it anymore!"

"What?!" Aria stops the car in the middle of the street.

"The feather! I can't sense it anymore!" Mokona furrows her little brow in frustration. "But I was sure I felt it! I know that I felt a feather back there!"

"Well let's go back there." Syaoran ventures.

"All right." Aria pulls back into her driveway. She Syaoran, and Mokona get out of the car, but Kurogane and Fai make no move to leave, "Let's leave them"Syaoran says as they walk back closer to Aria's house Mokona once again opens her eyes, "I feel it again!" she says bewildered

"That's so odd" Syaoran mumbles, he looks tense with worry. Then, with Mokona in hand he starts to walk back towards the street, and right as he stepped into the pavement, Mokona declares that she no longer senses the feather. Syaoran and Mokona proceed to wonder around the front of Aria's house trying to figure this out.

Aria looked back at her where Fai and Kurogane still sat, Fai in shotgun, and Kurogane in the back. They weren't talking, Fai was simply looking sad, and Kurogane looked like he needed to kill something.

_'__This is weird' _she thinks,_ ' why did they get this worked up.' _She gasps and her eyes widen._ 'Is kurofai real!?'_

"Psh no way" she breathes walking over to Syaoran, still eyeing the car

"So what's the verdict?' She asks

"I can only sense the feather in your yard. Once I step on the street I can't feel it!" Mokona looks upset.

"I can't explain it." Syaoran says,"Fai, might have some ideas, but he's not exactly speaking right now." He sits down on the sidewalk with Mokona in his lap.

"Do they fight like this often?" Aria asks

Syaoran sighs, "Fai has, well he has had a hard life, he's been through a lot."

_'__No kidding"_

"He was…bullied, and is kinda emotionally unstable-in a way. When the other me took his eye, he had to become a vampire to survive and Kurogane became his 'game' and that was a big blow for Fai. I think he doesn't like letting people get close to him, he thinks he'll hurt them. But he and Kurogane have gotten really close, and while he doesn't want to be close to people, I think at the same time, he's terribly afraid to lose them. And, while Kurogane acts tough, he really cares for people, and as much as Fai annoys him, Kurogane doesn't want to hurt him. They are really close" He finishes leaving Aria sad and emotionally drained from thinking and feeling sorry for the blonde.

"Well we might as well still go out into town, I mean, we might as well. Maybe we will find some hints or something." Aria suggests

"Ya I guess we should." Syaoran stands up and they head back to the car. They start to drive around the town in silence. Aria turns on the radio to help lessen the awkwardness of their situation. Her hands turn white from her death grip on the steering wheel. _'What have I gotten into? I have a missing feather, real fictional characters, and Kurofai angst! And on top of that, why can Mokona only sense the feather near my house? This all makes no sense." _She thinks

Aria sighs, "This is going to be a long week." She says under her breath earning a confused glance from Fai, who seemed to be coming back to his normal self

_End note _

_Tehehe I like the idea of Kurogane being afraid of cars and of them ending up in a comiccon. I originally hadn't planed on havin the fight, but it kinda just happened. So this is where the maybesortakinda Kurofai beings. I'm not writing them as a couple, but I am Addressing t__heir relationship as it is in my opinion. Which you will haveread continue reading story to learn._

_So I am going to explain how it all works with them meeting Clamp in my story. I know this isn't true, it's just my excuse for this to be possible. _

_So Syaoran and crew met a member of Clamp post series and told her their story, but without using names. They met them before CCS and Syaoran and Sakura were the inspiration for that and then later they wrote the whole story using their own characters in the spots. And i know that doesnt fit in the timeline, so Shao and crew wereprobably in a world where the time runs differently. Okay, I think that's all. _


	4. Chapter 4

**Author's note**

Sorry, sorry, sorry for the late update. I wanted to be lazy the last few days of summer, and I recently got obsessed with the show Soul Eater. So ok, this is the last update before school. From now on updates will be every Thursday starting not this thurs but next! I have issues writing these characters. I have a hard time writing Syaoran and even my OC Aria, but Kurogane and Fai almost write themselvs. mall most never plan any of their dialogue in advance, it just happens. And i Am having conflict about kurofai, its so fun to write them as a couple, but i dont think thats quite right! *internal conflict* but sry yaoi lovers its not happening in this fic, maybe ill do one later...So here we go, chapter four! Enjoy AND REVIEW! REVIEWS ARE SO MOTAVATING YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW. okay bai

~3

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"So that's it. I've driven you through all of town. Through all the residential areas, I did a perimeter of the town and we still haven't found any other sign of the feather." Aria sighs.

They were parked in the parking lot of one of the local parks, all feeling a little worse for wear. There had been no sign of the feather anywhere. All that was left now was to go through downtown, but it was mostly just to look around and shop for food and stuff.

"Well we should get moving. It's gonna get dark soon-" Kurogane started

"It's not gonna be dark anytime soon," Aria interrupted, "It's summertime and it won't be dark until like after eight, not six thirty. But will we should be going."

They drove towards the downtown area, Mokona still alert for any signs of the feather. The search had been a total failure. They hadn't found a single clue, even after nearly two hours of driving. Aria could only imagine how long it would have taken if Kurogane had made them walk.

The downtown in Aria's town was a bustling, pedestrian friendly-but not so car friendly-area so Aria parked the car a few streets away from the main shops and restaurants. As they got closer to the busy main street, tasty aromas started to waft through the air from the large array of restaurants in the area, causing Mokona to chirp with joy and hunger from inside the backpack she was hiding in.

As they arrived into the thick of downtown the four(well five counting Mokona) each had very different reactions. Fai was immediately entranced by the sounds and people, seemingly interested in every little detail, while Kurogane scowled and would start away from people when they moved too close to him. Syaoran just looked on with wonder. The liveliness and hospitality of this place reminded him of Clow. Thinking of Clow made his thoughts drift to the princess and how much she would enjoy this place. A shadow passed over his eyes as he thought of Sakura, he couldn't help but miss her.

"Hey, kid," Kurogane noticed Syaoran's downcast gaze, "What's wrong?" Syaoran started at the question, no matter how many times it happens, he never expects Kurogane to be as perceptive as he is.

"Well its just-" the boy's face began to flush a brilliant red, "I think Sakura would like it here." There was a slight pause in which it seemed like the brunette might go on and then he finally said, turning even redder, "I miss her." Kurogane smiled at the boy and rustled his hair, the kid had a good heart in him, and oddly enough Kurogane felt proud of him, in an odd and almost parental way.

Aria had noticed that they were beginning to attract some weird looks; and it occurs to her that it must be kinda odd to see a teenage girl walking with three guys, two of which were grown men and all were admittedly very attractive. They only actually had a few stops they really needed to go to, but Aria wanted them to see the center of town, so they walked along, chatting amiably about the various interesting things in life. Aria finally stopped the group in front of a small grocery store type thing, it was more of a small drugstore really, she needed to buy some extra food and she needed more allergy medicine.

So you'd think it would be easy enough to to for a quick shopping trip, even with four people, hardly. Fai wanted to buy everything sugar based in the store, and every few minutes Syaoran would have to be pulled away from anything showing the slightest technological value or from any weird looking food. And I'm sorry, but a nectarine is a nectarine, no matter how much it apparently looks like an orange, just no. After a surprisingly trying twenty minutes of shopping they proceeded to check out. Aria thanked the cashier, wondering what was going through his head, they had to seem weird; one young girl herding around three guys. She went to thank him, noticing his name tag read Kazahaya _'that's cool,' _she thought, _'he's got a Japanese name. It sound familiar too..' _As they walked out, arguing about the appearance if a tomato, she hears Kazahaya yell for someone named Rikuo. _'That sounds familiar too!'_ Aria let the others continue the conversation while she tried to remember why she knew those names. It's the worst when you can't remember something you _know _you know.

"Okay, now that that's over." Aria said glaring at the three and slapping the backpack in which Mokona was hiding, the plushie had issues staying quiet. "Now that we are done there, we should probably just finish walking around. I had wanted to go out to eat, but I don't wanna deal with that." Aria was glad she didn't have to go clothes shopping with them. Syaoran wasn't bad, but Fai and Kurogane were obnoxious to shop with.

"Oh but Ariaaaaa, I wanted to eat the yummy food with Kuro-myuu." Fai exclaims, clinging onto the taller man's arm, causing him to glare down at the Mage in fury.

"Cut it out mage, we don't need to eat out." Kurogane growls back, shaking off the lighter man, "You wouldn't want fat or something would you?" the ninja threatens

"Ooooh, Kuro-tan cares about my figure!" Fai says with a huge-and probably fake-grin. Aria could still see a little sadness in is eyes, and she knew the raven could too.

Kurogane blushes. He hadn't meant that; he'd only meant to find a reason for the blonde to stop complaining. He swats Fai upside the head, causing a high-pitched squeak to leave the blonde. They were attracting more weird looks, Syaoran and Aria just kept walking a few paces ahead hoping the other two wouldn't get lost.

"ARIAAAAA!" Aria turns around wide-eyed at the high voice and then gets glomped by a tall athletic looking blonde. Syaoran stands there awkwardly and Fai and Kurogane catch up to the rest of the crew looking confused at this new development.

"Oh. My. God Corra, are you trying to kill me?" Aria pulls out of the hug to look at the attractive, and obnoxious Corra who had-against Aria's will-decided that she loved Aria and was going to pester the girl to no end. Corra is a year older than Aria and had been in her math class last year. She always wore too much makeup and had a new boyfriend every week.

"Why would I kill you Ari?" she asks innocently, eyes wide. The Ari thing was another reason Aria didn't like her. Her name was Aria. Corra turns to the other members of Aria's group, eyes surveying their bodies, especially Fai's. Aria felt that whoever she was dating at the moment had just dropped down in importance.

"So, you are these guys?" she says with a flirtatious wave.

"This is my...cousin," Aria says gesturing to Syaoran, " And his brother-also a cousin- and his...boyfriend." Aria says awkwardly giving Fai and Kurogane a _please go with it _look behind Corra, causing Fai to then grab Kurogane's hand and smile. Corra noticeable drooped and turned back to Ari with a surprised, and somewhat disbelieving look.

"Really?" Aria nods stiffly at the question while trying to fend off the daggers that Kurogane's eyes had become.

"Well then, it was nice meeting you." she says stiffly then hugged Aria once again before running off.

"Why the hell did you say we were dating?!" Kurogane yells.

"Becuase we are Kuro-sweet." Fai says to Kurogane

"What?" the blacked haired man looked confused, "No we're not idiot!" Be says gruffly, then realizing they were still holding hands jerked his hand out of Fai's grasp

"I don't get you mage." Aria and Syaoran started walking again hoping the two would follow.

"Why was that the first excuse to come to your mind Aria?" Syaoran asked as they walked along the busy street.

"Don't talk to her kid," Kurogane glares at Aria, "She's a bad influence. Pairing two men together, tch." he says under his breath.

"I dunno, I guess I just thought it would get rid of her." Aris says glaring at the ninja. "And it's not like gay couples aren't a thing. You shouldn't be prejudice like that, people have a right to love who they love, no matter what the sex." She says indignantly. Her _real _cousin was actually gay and had been going to get married to his boyfriend of two years; then prop eight* happened. Needless to say, Aria felt strongly about the subject.

"Well, whatever I didn't mean to tick you off." the black hair man sighed. He could already tell that Aria was the type you didn't want to cross. You'd be yelling for hours.

"Aria-chan. Can I call you Aria-chan?" Fai asks.

"Well sure, but honorifics like that are a Japanese thing and we don't use them here." she ponders how honorifics translated into Fai's language.

"Well, Aria-chan. I officially love your city!" Fai exclaims excitedly, "Everyone is so nice and happy. Most of the worlds we visit are gloomy and sad, but yours is so nice!" Watching Fai talk, Aria is reminded of the saying that some of her drama nerd friends use to describe themselves and people who talk with their hands, "Italian at Heart." Fai talks with his whole _body_ over acting everything and using his voice and movements to assist in getting his point across a little too much. Aria wondered if it was a side effect from his pretending to be happy all the time, or if that was just how he was.

They cross the street near the end of the downtown area. It was less crowded, and out of the shopping area. There was a memorial garden that she wanted them to see. It was from the second world war, and Aria didn't really know why her town had decided to make it. But it was beautiful and the story that went with it was wonderful, just like a fairy tale or something.

The garden looked a bit like a hedge maze from outside. It was surrounded by tall hedges that were dotted with small white flowers during the summer. On one side there was an archway like opening into the main garden. The garden was reminiscent of a zen garden in a way. It had gravel swirled into patterns, but instead of minimal rocks and serene simplicity. Where there was no gravel, flowers burst out in little patches in every color. In the center of the garden was a short stone pillar with the names of the people it was dedicated to carved into it in fancy writing, along with an amazingly intricate carving of roses climbing up its gray surface. The pillar also included the words "all that is done for love can be treated as heroism, no mater how small the dead." the only way to get to the pillar was to follow the small path that wound through the circular enclosure.

It was one of Aria's favorite places in town, and it was luckily empty as she lead the group to one of the benches she was interrupted from her simple pleasure by a sudden jerking in the backpack caring Mokona. Aria looked around, and judging the scene to be safe, she unzipped the backpack on a wide-eyed Mokona.

"I can feel it here!" The little creature shouts, Aria quickly shushes her telling her to be quiet.

"I can sense the feather here!" Mokona whispers.

"You can?" Syaoran asks in disbelief, "What exactly does that mean? Is the feather here?" Mokona furrows her brow, thinking, then says, " It's not here. It doesn't feel strong enough. The feather actually seems pretty far away. But mokon doesn't know why the can be sensed here. It doesn't make sense." the pork bun looks downcast.

"Well us there any reason that this place might have some type of magic around it?" Fai asks, "You said something about it having a cool dedication.

"Yeah, what's the deal with this place. It looks like a happy-go-lucky chick tried to design a zen garden." Kurogane asks. Aria calls Syaoran over who had been investigating the garden.

"Well let me tell you the story behind this place. It happened back during a big war in Earth's history..."

There was a Japanese-American named Motosuwa Hideki. He was an American citizen, but only first generation. When war was brewing overseas, he wanted to fight, and he wanted to fight for America. And he wanted to fight so he would be able I bring his finance to America. Whenever he fought, before the battle he would tell himself that he was doing this for her, for his dear Chi.

He lied about his linage, claiming to be the tenth generation in America and joined he army. He became a pilot and was somehow allowed to continue right against Japan. When the war ended, he was stationed across the country from his home, and he had recently revived word that his fiancé, Chitose, had managed to come to America and was waiting for him back home.

Desperate to see her again, Motosuwa left his station as soon as he could, flying back in his own plan which he would return to the base close I home. He never returned he plane. Half way home, his navigation crashed and he then had to try to get back using his eyes and any other system still running, and he almost made it. In southern California, he started to go down. He was losing altitude and just about everything else, he tried to eject, but he couldn't. He finally crash landed in a small town.

The townsfolk ran out if their homes, stopped in their tracks to watch the burning plane go down. They saw the man in the wreckage and desperately tried to help him, but the man was near death. He kept mumbling incoherently in Japanese, which caused the people to start to doubt that he was really an American solider. Maybe he was a spy. Then he said, "Tell Chi-tell her I love her. Tell her to-to be happy." he said, and then in Japanese he added, "Shiawaseni shite kudasai. Chitose Hibiya". Then he died.

The townspeople couldn't find any information about the man besides his name, so they decided to give him a proper burial where he had landed...

"Not long after that, Chitose actually came. She somehow found out where Motosuwa had crashed and went to find it. She was the one who made the garden. She was able to convince the town to make a memorial. But I'm not sure how, there was a lot of hate for Japanese-Americans going around then. But maybe the mayor was a sappy romantic, but he had this monument thing built. Chitose died in her sleep ten years after she came here. There's actually a lot of odd rumors about Chitose. She apparently talked in the third person, and some people say she had a weird habit of wearing fake cat ears sometimes. She was only 40 when she died." Aria finishes. Personally, Aria found the story extremely romantic and had always been interested in the tale. Syaoran and Fai received he story with sad smiles, while Kurogane sat grumbling about hopeless romantics.

"Well, how does that relate to the feather? Is there any way that those people could be connected to this?" Syaoran asks.

"Well I dunno. Did you ever meet anyone named Motosuwa Hideki or Chitose Hibiya, I think she went by Chi?" _went by Chii. _It suddenly feel into place; was this Chitose actually this world's Chii?! Now that she's thinks about it, a lot of her descriptions match Chii's personality. And what was her lovers name? It was Motosuwa Hideki. Hideki. Chii and Hideki. Aria gasps, who could she never had noticed this before.

"Well I did know someone-actually a few someones-named Chii. And she had quite a bit of magical powers. Maybe this person was the Chii of your world." Fai says.

"Okay, wait." Kurogane interrupts, "Why do we keep talking about magic users? Aria said there was no magic here."

"Well there's no _proven _magic. But there are plenty of stories about it, and a lot of not proven stuff that could exist." Aria defends her long standing belief in magic.

Fai runs his hand along the inside of the hedge, a pensive look on his face. Then he closes his eyes and stands still for a moment.

"I didn't notice it before, but there is a small magic field around this place. It feels very protective, the kind of magic that comes from a very strong heart when it cares deeply about something. I think it must have been this world's Chii, this magic reminds me of her in a way." the mage opens his bright blue eyes, looking very peaceful. He smiles softly, almost sadly. '_Even though he liked Chii, talking about her must remind him of Celes, of Ashura.'_Aria thinks.

"Well now that we have figured out why we can sense the feather here, can you tell us anything about where we might find the feather, Mokona?" Syoran asks. The little animal sits thinking for a moment, trying to read the feather's energy.

"It feels far away. I think it even may be out of town, like in the hills. The magic is odd, a little different than before, it feels more defensive, like whatever is holding the feather is in something that's running in instinct, not real thought." Mokona finishes, looking both pleased with herself and confused.

"Has anything weird happened here lately?" Kurogane asks

"No, not really. Everything's been really normal this summer." Aria responds.

"Well that's a bit odd, most of the time the feather causes something strange tot happen where it lands." Kurogane says

"It's possible that the feather only came in recently, maybe right when we came. It may be a long time after Sakura lost her memories, but time runs differently here. I mean we've seen bigger time differences." Syaoran says. The boy looks more, and more distressed as time went on. He wanted to find this feather as soon as possible, he didn't want to be stuck guessing in the dark for something that they may never find, "Fai, do you think that you could break down this barrier at all?" he asks

"I probably could, but we'd need to find a pretty deserted place, I have a feeling that they would not react well if I suddenly started doing magic in the middle of town."

"Okay, so let's get going. We should get back to my house and eat dinner. Maybe we could watch some TV or something, I dunno." Aria suggests and they start to leave the memorial

" I think we should contact Watanuki. He might know something or be able to help us." Syaoran says.

"Let's wait until we're back at Aria's okay kid? There's no rush to talk to him. He may be better than Yuuko, but I think you have to be annoying to have that job." Kurogane says. He had been on the reviving end of too many of both shopkeepers' jokes to feel quite comfortable with them. And the shop staff too. He didn't like Mokona or Maru and Moro, they creeped out the ninja.

"Okay, okay, let's go then."

They walk back to the car in silence, each person absorbed in their own thoughts. Where was this leading? Was there going to be a battle of some sort, would the people of the town ever know anything happened? Aria was busy thinking about Chii _'Was it really them? I can't really see Hideki wanting to go to war, but just about every young man entered the army then. It's crazy to think that there are crossovers in my world. How could this be possible?_

They arrived at Aria's house and Mokona got ready to contact Watanuki. They set up in the living room and Mokona,s magic screen came out of her head jewel. The pinkish screen rippled then gave way to an image of Maru and Moro, the colorful assistants of the shop.

Aria was sitting on the couch when she saw them, and good thing too. She found herself going light-headed. She couldn't take this much anime realness in one day. An intrusive meow jerked Aria back into stable conscience as Millie kept on to her lap and started staring at the projection, fur bristling in fear.

"I guess Millie doesn't like magic. Its no surprise, she's never had an encounter with it before." Aria laughed, then remembered. "But she likes Fai. I guess he's special to Millie." she said petting her cat behind the ears, though the animal kept in glaring as Mokona's projection followed the girls through the large shop.

They at last arrived to were Watanuki was, but he wast alone. Watanuki was laying in his bed, looking far more peaceful then he ever did awake. His eyes were closed and he wasn't moving. And in a chair next to the bed sat Doumeki, brow furrowed in worry. He noticed the projection come into the room.

"Hey." the monotone greeting was all that Doumeki could be bothered to spare.

"What's wrong with Watanuki?!" Syaoran gasped. They heard the other Mokona speak from he other side of the screen, but couldn't see him.

"We don't know what's wrong. He wouldn't wake up from his nap. His soul seems to be missing. But he's fine otherwise."

_End note:_

_*Prop 8: for those who don't know, proposition eight was a law passed in California making same sex marriage illegal. Which is a bunch of bullcrap in my opinion._

_Chitose Hibiya was the name of the author of that book Chii read, I think it was called a town with no people, or something. But I wanted it to be something that wouldn't have been to obvious so aria wouldn't have noticed it. And I hope I got Hideki's last name right, i was too lazy to check._

_And they met the legal drug people:3 I know they probably wouldn't be in a random Southern California town, and that their store is in Yuuko's world(right? Idk) so then it would be on real earth... I dunno. It's all so confusing, so lets just pretend it works._

_I'm sorry for awkward tenses when I write. I'm bad at grammar (- -;)_


	5. Chapter 5

**Author's note **

ITS CHAPTER FIVE AND YES IT STILL IS THURSDAY! Omg real life was a pain this week and I didn't have one to do anything, so it was Wednesday night and I was like 'oh crap!' and then started writing. So I hope you enjoy this chapter. And I know that stuff isn't really getting interesting yet, but it willllll. The end is coooool! So enjoy and please review, favorite, follow, whatever you do!

~3

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"Wait, what!?" Syaoran shouted "What's that supposed to mean!? Do I have to go looking _Watanuki's_feathers too?!"

"Ya black pork bun, you better explain yourself." Kurogane growled. Fai and Aria were simply standing there in shock, unable to piece this together, it didn't make sense, last time someone's soul had gone missing it had been the work of Fei Wang Reed. Mokona began to whimper, then she began to cry and in between sniffles she cried out, "Watanuki! Will Watanuki be okay?"

Fai picked up the sniffling creature, leaving her to project from his arms.

"Mokona," he said to the Mokona on the other side of the screen "Are you sure that's what you mean? Could you be a little bit more exact? Will Watanuki be alright?" this time, Doumeki answered. They had almost forgotten that he was there, he had been so quiet "I think Watanuki's conscience is not in his body. I think the idiot was-" Millie jumped through the projection from Aria's arms. It was as if she was trying to disrupt the projection.

"Millie!" Aria chastised, "Sorry you guys. Magic doesn't agree with her apparently" Aria looked up and found herself standing face-to-face with the Doemeki in the projection. _'Another person from a manga?! How is it possible that I live my whole life without meeting any of them?!"_

"Who's this chick?" Doumeki asked.

"This is Aria." said Fai " She has graciously offered to let us stay her even though it means that she will have to deal with Kuro-tan's meanness." the blonde said cheerily. Doumeki only grunted in reply.

" I think that he might be stuck in a type of dream-world, so he's not gonna be of any help to you." said Doumeki with a worried look, "I think he's gonna be alright. I asked Kohane-chan to see him, she might be able to help" Aria was a little impressed at the stoic. He was talking an awful lot for his character, he must be really worried about Watanuki.

"You really care for him." Aria said, not as a question, but as a statement. She didn't get a response, but Doumeki looked down at the magician with concerned eyes.

"Oh, well thank you Doumeki. Make sure Watanuki gets better." Syaoran said

"Sure kid."

"Byyeeeeee!" the black Mokona yelled before cutting off the projection. The five sat in silence for a minute, all stunned at Watanuki's condition. Then Aria said something that had been bothering her, "So, is Wataunki the new space time witch?"

"He-I dunno, he took over running her shop, and he does do wish granting now. But I'm not sure if he's really her successor. He has enormous power, and can send people through dimensions, but I dunno, he's just not Yuuko." Syaoran said.

"And it'd be kinda weird if that spazz was the new Yuuko." Kurogane added

"He's not as spazzy as he used to be Kuro-rin"

"So you don't know?" Aria asked dejectedly.

"He is"

"He's not" Kurogane and Syaoran said at he same time,then Fai said, "We have no idea either." ending the conversation. It was only later that they realized that they had never told Aria that Yuuko had died.

They soon realized that they had almost forgotten to eat dinner. Aria whipped up a quick meal with the help of Fai. Aria found that the magician was a great help in the kitchen, and soon a meal of fresh salad and sandwiches was laid out on the table. And they began to eat, Aria noticed both Syaoran and Kurogane say 'ittadakimasu' quietly before eating. The food was good, but before long Kurogane had finished his own food and everyone else's seconds leaving Syaoran and Mokona staring glumly down at their plates. Aria realized that she probably should have cooked more, cooking for three guys and a bottomless pit was different than cooking for just herself.

"Here, I'll go make some more." Aria said about to leave the table '_this is terrible, I am being a bad host even before the day is out'_ she got up about to make some more food when Syaoran stopped her, "No, we don't need more food. It was very nice of you to make dinner for us in the first place." he said with a small smile. "And anyway, we need to talk about our plan of action. We need to find the feather." the air around the table tensed, each member getting anxious at the mention of the feather.

"It's true, we haven't really made any progress yet." Kurogane grumbled. Aria looked down, suddenly finding her old table cloth very interesting. She was not really looking forward to finding the feather for a few reasons. She didn't want to have to be in a big battle or something, that would be terrifying and Aria just wasn't made for fighting, and also, she didn't want them to leave. She has only just met them, and the thrill of knowing that her favorite fantasy characters were real was amazing.

"Well, we haven't had much time to actually figure anything out, I mean it hasn't even been a day." Fai pointed out

"Still, we need to find this feather." Syaoran said determinedly "Fai, Mokona what do you know about the feather so far?"

"Well, we think the feather is not in the immediate vicinity, it's probable on the outskirts of town maybe in the hills. Also this magic feels defensive, as if has been threatened by something." Fai said. Then, from the head of the table, Mokona sighed, she looked down then spoke, "The thing that's been bothering me about this magic, is it feels very-very accidental almost, like the magic user isn't aware of the power it has. I feel the feather, but it's in something, and that something doesn't know it has it. The magic is heightening the objects feelings and reactions." Mokona stared straight ahead trying to figure out exactly what she meant.

"So you think a person has the feather?" Aria asked. She didn't want a person to have the feather. If any human got their hands on that power they would most definitely abuse it, and then it would be even harder to get it back.

"I don't know. It could be in an animal, or even a plant, or just in the ground somewhere." Mokona replied

"But ground doesn't have instincts." Kurogane sai, half jokingly, and half honestly confused.

"I don't think that's the point" Aria said to the ninja.

"hmph"

"But how do we find it?" Syaoran asked exasperated "How can I get back Sakura's feather?!"

"Maybe we should search through the hills?" Aria suggested.

"That'd take too long," Complained Kurogane

"Says the one who wanted to _walk_ all the way around town!"

"That was different." Aria sighed in annoyance, this man was so obnoxious.

"Calm down now Kuro-doggy." sang Fai, "The big doggy is always getting worked up like that." He said to Aria as if they were sharing a secret, even though Kurogane could hear every word they said. And Fai merely patted the bigger man's arm when Kurogane glared at him, and could be heard muttering, "Go eff your self mage." Syaoran and Ari awkwardly ignored the comment, then Fai replied, "That might be rather difficult, but if you want to assist me, I'll gladly take you up on the offer." The magician smiled ear to ear.

Syaoran choked on his water, and Aria's fork froze halfway to her mouth. Mokona started laughing her head off and cheered, "Fai-mommy is flirting with Kuro-daddy!" Fai kept the smile on his face the whole time, but he turned slightly red at Mokona's comment. Kurogane finally regained control of his muscle system and turned his head to Fai, very, very slowly. His eyes were as wide as they could possibly get and his mouth was open ever so slightly in shock. He didn't say anything, but kept looking at the man in complete, utter shock.

Syaoran coughed to interrupt the awkward silence and then he ventured, "Fai, umm, what is up with you sometimes." Fai opened his eyes at Syaoran's comment and saw the boy blushing a brilliant red. Fai looked as if he was about to say something, but Aria seized her chance.

"Ya, what is it with you? Are you a couple? Friends?" she looked at Kurogane and Fai expectantly.

"WHAT THE HELL!?"

"A couple? That's new idea. How 'bout we try that out Ku-" Fai was cut off by Kurogane's had slamming over his mouth, and the raven yelled, "No way! No fucking way!" then he looked at Aria's expectant face and Fai's cheerful one under his hand. "Well I don't hate the mage, but really!?" Fai had finally wrenched himself from Kurogane's grip and he looked conflicted for a minute, his face almost seemed to be switching back and forth from silly to serious. He decided on serious and said, "Aria, Kurogane is a _very_ important person to me, but-Aria we aren't in love, at least not like you're thinking." He looked up at Kurogane and then down at his empty plate, "And even if I did, I can't be in a relationship like that." Fai, who had been goofing off just a moment ago, now looked sullen and depressed. His past seemed to be catching up with him.

"Ummmm... Aria, was that necessary?" Syaoran asked, his face pink and he was looking nervously at his hands. "I don't think that was called for." he turned to look at the two in question, and registering Fai's sadness he said, "Fai, if you love someone, you have just as much right to be in a relationship as anyone else. Love isn't conditional, if it's real...it's just real, and that's really it." His speech had started out strong and emotional, but by the end of it he was speaking slower and was turning pink again, "Sorry, I guess Sakura's worn off on me." he said in explanation of his romanticism.

They all sat in silence for a bit-even Mokona-then Kurogane abruptly got out of his chair, picked up his own plate and Fai's then moved quickly into the kitchen calling for Aria to help him clean this stuff. Aria then grabbed the remaining plates and utensils and went after Kurogane into the kitchen, leaving Fai and Syaoran argue dining room table.

Kurogane and Aria did the dishes in silence, though a few times it seamed as if Kurogane would question the girl, he never did.

In the dinning room Syaoran had quickly excused himself and gone upstairs to see the room he would be sleeping in. Fai sat at his chair, Mokona perched diligently in front of him. Fai stared off at the wall, clearly absorbed in his own past and the notion that maybe he could be close to someone. It was a concept that he had been steadily getting used to since the trip had started. He reached up to touch the veins in his neck where he knew the vampire blood still ran. He no longer need Kurogane's blood as often as he used to, but he still need to feed occasionally. It was always painful for him, he hated having to be dependent on another person for his life.

"Fai?" he jumped as Aria rested her hand on his shoulder.

"A-Aria" he turned to see the teen looking down at him, concern in her eyes.

"Is anything wrong?" she asked.

"No, not at all Aria-chan!" he plastered a smile to his face and quickly dismissed the accusation. "Im just tired, that's all." he gave a large yawn and got up from his chair. He smiled at Aria, "I should probably go to sleep, we have a big day ahead of us." the magician ruffled Aria's hair which, under any other circumstances would have mad the youth very mad, but Aria let the blonde tousle her hair and simply gave him a small smile.

"Well, sleep well Fai-san." Aria watched the tall man go upstairs and turn into the guest bedroom in which he was sleeping.

"If you ever pull something like that again, I'll make you wish you hadn't." It was Aria's turn to jump, she whipped around at Kurogane's voice.

"Kuro-san!" she yelped, accidentally letting the nickname slip out. She had never liked his full name, it was too long and she always got the accent in the wrong spot, so she had taken to referring to him as 'Kuro-san'. She realized that translated to 'Mr. Black' and she knew he ninja didn't like to be called that, but... The tall man glared down at her, his eyes narrowing.

"I don't like it when people screw around with me. I told you not to piss me off. Got it kid?" Aria stood there for a second, then blushed and said, "I'm sorry, I just had to ask. You act like more than friends sometimes." she avoided meeting his eyes. Kurogane glowered at the girl then turned away and mumbled that he was going to sleep.

When Kurogane left, Aria found herself all alone downstairs. She checked the clock, it was only nine thirty, hardly late enough to go to bed. She sat down at the computer and decided to waste time on the Internet until she felt ready for bed

Kurogane was restless. Aria's comment had unnerved him. He and Fai didn't act like a couple did they? _'Damn that girl for fucking with my head. Why'd she have to go saying stuff like that? And she got the mage upset again, but why they'll do I care?!' _He messaged his forehead and paced around the room, pissed at himself for caring so much. And he could practically hear Tomoyo laughing at him. He kept pacing, and at one point he found himself in front of Fai's door. He stood there wondering how he got there for a long moment then opened the door without knocking.

"Oi, mage" he said loudly causing Fai to turn around quickly.

"Hello Kuro-sama!" Fai said desperately trying to keep his mask up, but his eyes betrayed his fear.

"Stop pretending idiot. You know you can't fool me." Fai's face stayed happy for a moment after the comment, then it dropped into a sinister glare.

"Why did you come? Come to yell at me for being embarrassing?" he accused. Kurogane almost took a step back, he knew all of Fai's faces but it always disturbed him when he got sinister and cold like this.

"I didn't come to yell. I don't even know why I came in fact." Kurogane stated.

"Then why not leave." Fai's voice was dangerously low and he seemed genuinely pissed. Kurogane took a step closer to the blonde and closed the door behind him.

"Because I know you don't want me to, you're just as confused at this as I am." Kurogane kept walking forward and back Fai up against the wall.

"Oh I am, am I?" Fai said, his face changing from angry to scared.

"I know you are." Kurogane had pinned Fai to the wall and held his face only inches from the magician's.

"Is Kuro-rin going to kiss me?" Fai asked part sarcastically part flirtatious. Kurogane move as to close the distance between them, causing Fai to start to close his eyes, but at the last moment he stopped and took a full step away from Fai.

Fai looked confused for a moment, he wasn't sure why Kurogane had moved away. Kurogane looked down at himself, as if wondering what had just come over him, he had that close to _kissing_ the mage! He then looked over at Fai and stared him straight in the face, making the blonde uncomfortable.

"No, no I'm not." The ninja shock his head fiercely, his speech gaining confidence. "No, it's not like that, _we're _not like that. I don't like you like that. I-"Kurogane rubbed the back if his neck, this was hard for him to say, "I definitely don't hate you, in fact, I might even like you. You're-dammit how do I say this. At the moment, I'm closer to you than anyone expect Tomoyo-hime. And-dammit Fai you're my friend!" Kurogane glared at the dumbstruck magician. Fai stared back gathering his thoughts, then he lowered his head and whispered, "I wouldn't have minded."

"What was that?"

"Nevermind." Kurogane gave him a weird look and turned to leave the room, but was stopped by Fai hugging him from behind.

"What the-" Kurogane began.

"Thank you." Fai said, and before Kurogane could ask what for, he added "Thank you for being my friend." Kurogane stood there digesting what he had said, then patted Fai's hands wrapped around his waist and mumbled, "It's not a big deal to be nice to someone you li-love" he then broke out of Fai's embrace and walked back to his room already knowing that he wouldn't be sleeping much.

Back in Fai's room, the magician stood there where Kurogane had left him then sat down heavily on the bed. He touched his eyes softly.

"Do you hear that Fai? I have a friend."

"WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON!?" Kurogane ran out from his room on unstable legs. The house was shaking violently and crashes could be heard from inside the house. From his doorway he saw Syaoran ducked under a table and Aria and Fai standing in their doorways.

"Stay under your door!" Aria shouted. The house was moving, quaking under their feet causing Mokona to scream from Fai's shoulder where she stood. They were moving, moving, then it stopped and the house was left in an unnatural silence.

The four stayed still for a long moment, then Aria slowly sank to the floor, eyes wide and face pale. She was shaking. Fai leaned against the wall and heaved a giant sigh as Kurogane and Syaoran came over to them.

"What was that?" when Syaoran spoke, his voice was shaky.

"An earthquake." Aria was so pale she was nearly blue. "Earthquakes are common in California, but I've never been in one that large before. It must have been at least a four, maybe a five." she shivered, "Even though I'm technically prepared, they're so scary. Aria curled up into a ball on the floor and Fai walked over and embraced the girl and rocked her back and forth as if she was a small child.

"It's alright Aria-chan. No one is hurt and I don't think the house sustained that much damage. How about we all go down stairs and I'll make some hot chocolate and we can talk this out, okay?" Fai pulled away but still held onto Aria's shoulders.

"Mhmm" Aria sniffed and she got up and began to slowly walk down stairs with the rest of them close behind.

_End note_

_Yup, that's chapter five. Sorry for my awkward writing style. And yessss they're was Kurofai almost-ness! I am dealing with them. Even though Kurogane said he loved Fai, it's not in a romantic sense, or even a familia sense. In my option they share something very unique and special. It's a kind of leg and understanding hats more than romantic type love, they are each others' most important person but it's not smutty. And yes Fai said he wouldn't have minded if Kuro kissed him, Tehehehe I'm sorry, I had to 8D._

SPOILER. If anyone was confused Fai was talking about his twin, Fai. His real name is Yuui. But I think most of you know that. Untill next Thursday and have a good Labor day weekend!


	6. Chapter 6

**Author's note**

gomenasai gomenasaigomenasai! IM SOO SORRY! I can't believe I got this out late. I got my computer taken away, and I'm the only person who can have a three day weekend and not wright stuff (-;) I might put in a little extra Kurogane and Fai interactiothinker thing on Sunday, idk.

Kazahaya and Rikuoalarms in this chapter. I just finished leagal drug and Ireeeallly wanna put them in this story but I dunno it I should, so ease give me your opinion on that.

Well even if this chapter's late it's the longest yet! It was soooo annoying to proofread

And i did put another story for a bit; but I didn't like it so I took it down. And well I'm saying pointless things, just a FYI, I do all my work on my iPod. I write and post on it. My iPod is my lifeeeeeeeee

Oh and Kyle's technically not mine but he's really OOC in this fic

~3

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They didn't get much more sleep that night. They had gathered in Aria's living room after going downstairs, all sitting silently except Fai who was busy making hot chocolate. Aria sat cross-legged on he favorite chair. It was an old vintage thing, large and very plush, it's soft red velvet fabric well worn in many places. Both Syaoran and Kurogane sat on the couch opposite of Aria. Mokona had fallen back asleep on Aria's lap, who was absently petting the fluff ball.

So far they had left all that had fallen down on the floor, none of them wanted to acknowledge that this had happened. Aria was also avoiding calling her parents. She knew that she should tell them, but right now she just didn't have the motivation to tell them. They were all very restless. Syaoran kelt fidgeting and Kurogane had started cleaning his sword that was already spotless. Aria kept switching from paranoia to extreme I-want-to-hide-under-the-covers-and-never-come-out. She would be glancing around erratically one moment and then curled up in a ball the next.

When glancing around she noticed that they were all in some sort of pajamas, but due to the fact that she was in shock, the fact that Kurogane was not wearing a shirt and that Syaoran was only in shorts and a tank top failed to have an effect on her. She did feel a small spark of self-consciousness realizing she was only in a old, over large shirt and short shorts, but it was quickly dismissed.

Fai brought down the hot chocolate and a cup of coffee for Kurogane. As the warm, sweet drink began to make is way through Aria, she started coming back to her normal self, and the hormones started kicking in as she saw Fai, who also apparently slept without a shirt. She also wondered how he had gotten the drink to be hot even though the power was off. Probably some magic.

Once the drinks had been distributed, Fai stood facing Aria's television, giving the piece of machinery an odd look.

"This is a TV right?" he asked

"Ya." Aria responded. Fai tilted his head, as it he was trying to remember something that he had once known. "How do we get it to show us the news?" He asked turning around to face Aria

"There's no news on right now Fai." Aria responded, almost annoyed. Did Fai really think that the news would be on at one in the morning? And the power was out on top of that.

"Oh." he looked a bit defeated as he went down to sit on the couch.

They sat there in near silence for the rest of the night. At one point Aria and Syaoran had both drifted to sleep in their chairs leaving Fai and Kurogane to watch over them.

During the night the two sat in the dark, silent house. The only sounds that ever penetrated were the soft creaks and groans of the house. The lights were off, so the only light was from a small ball of incandescent blue light that Fai was keeping aloft over his shoulder. The pulsating blue light cast odd swirling shadows around the room, filling the corners with imaginary monsters and the spaces in between objects with small evils, ready to come out and bite you when you let down your guard

Not that this scared either of the men. Once a small aftershock had shaken the house, causing Aria to wake up and wouldn't go back to sleep until Fai coaxed her to the couch to be next to him and worked some sleep magic on her. The magician smiled sadly at the girl as he brushed her hair out of her face. If only he was innocent enough that his greatest fear was a small earthquake. He looked at Kurogane and they shared a glance letting the other know they felt the same way. If only the wrath of mother nature was the most of their worries.

As the hours of the night progressed, the sky got lighter and lighter; scaring away the demons and evils of the night, and bathing the room in the soft pink light of early morning. The slight blanket of light woke Syaoran and Aria, though they were still part asleep when the sun really began to rise, and the full light broke over the hills in brilliant rays of gold and yellow, catching in the few clouds and dyeing them various shade of pink and orange.

As the last of the brilliant rays of the initial sunrise fell out of the sky, and the true light of day began to take over and the sky started to appear a true California blue. The four began to plan for the day ahead.

"The earthquake most likely had something to do with the feather, it didn't feel entirely natural." Aria looked up to watch Fai as he talked. Aria had awoken to find herself leaning on the magician, his hand resting softly on her hair and not remembering how she had gotten there.

"Aria, what do you think?" the blonde asked softly. Aria sat up slowly, taking her time to think. "It's not uncommon for there to be earthquakes here, all of California is basically a high risk zone for them. But we aren't that close to a fault line, any quakes we usually get are like residue from other quakes." Aria got up and grabbed her laptop from the coffee table and did a quick search on the earthquake ignoring Fai's complaints as to why they couldn't watch it on the TV.

"Listen to this." Aria scrolled through the news article looking for other interesting facts. "The epicenter of the earthquake was just outside of town and, the earthquake lasted a lot longer than most earthquakes it's size, it went on for nearly a minute. And get this, the quake is confusing experts. They can't quite pinpoint the epicenter because based on how earthquakes expand and stuff, where the center should be, there isn't a fault. But only a half a mile away, is a fault that could have produced the quake. Aria looked up excitedly, "I think we have a clue!" she exclaimed

"Well what are we gonna do about it?" Kurogane asked "Won't the science freaks be there all day?"

"I doubt it Kuro-sama." Fai said leaning over so that his head was resting on Kurogane's lap and looking up at his face "No one would want to be out there in this heat all day." Fai's voice broke in the middle of his sentence when Kurogane pushed him back up roughly.

"Well I think Fai's right, but for the wrong reason." Aria was reading from her laptop again. "it seems like the area in question is in a city park, and the city wants it to be open, and scientist free after lunch incase any people want to come, but I doubt people are going to be going to the park today." she said.

"See, Kuro-puu?"

"Shut up."

Syaoran turned to Aria and asked if she knew anyone who could maybe help them.

"Well, I have a friend who's really good at science, and his dad can pull a lot of strings, if we need him to."_And he read Taubasa. _She added to herself. "His name's Kyle and-" she dropped off seeing them all stiffen a bit. "What?"

"It's just we have had bad experiences with a person named Kyle." Kurogane growled. Aria stood looking confused and then she remembered: Dr. Kyle! Of course they were worried they'd meet him in this universe.

"-Oh, well I'm sorry. But don't worry, Kyle's like my best friend. I've known him forever and he's really nice." she told them.

"Well he better be." Kurogane said still wary.

"Don't be mad Kurogane, I think we can trust Aria's judgement." Syaoran said. Kurogane huffed his consent, then moved to more pressing matters, like when they would get food.

"There's cereal and bread in the pantry. Milk, butter, peanut butter and jam are in the fridge and the toaster is over by the sink. I'm having cereal. And don't expect me to make your food, just saying." She gave a pointed look at Kurogane. She then got up and started preparing cereal. She had noticed that she was starving at Kurogane's comment and couldn't wait for breakfast. The others made their way into the kitchen a good deal more slowly, almost as if they were unsure of how to proceed. That is, except Fai, he bound into the kitchen after Aria and quickly began preparing his toast.

"Kuro-kyuu, Syao, if you don't eat soon you're gonna have to leave on an empty stomach!" Fai called from the kitchen. Syaoran appeared confused as he stood up to go and eat. Since when did Fai call him Syao?

"Why should I make my own food? It's not like I can cook." Kurogane groaned sinking further down into the coach, not making the slightest move to get up. Fai stopped cooking. He put down the knife be was using to butter his bread, walked nimbly over to Kurogane, stood over the man for a second, then poked his cheek.

Fai poked slowly at first, then faster and faster, bombarding Kurogane's face. The ninja sat still for a moment, almost seeming to be allowing Fai to poke his cheek, then he suddenly stood up and walked quickly over to the kitchen and started making cereal, grumbling about unfairness

"Ya Kyle, are you free today?" Aria asked over the telephone. As soon as breakfast had been over, Aria went upstairs to call Kyle.

"I'm free. Why?" Aria had thought that he was the best person to contact in the situation. He liked anime, had a giant science nerd brain, and could keep a secret.

"I have some friends who need you're help."

"Which friends." At this Aria paused, she knew she had to tell him, but this was gonna be more than a little weird.

"You'll find out. Just promise me to say nothing when you get here."

"...Ariaaaaa" _'Ah! Why can't I say no to him? Whyyy?!'_ Aria wondered. Kyle was very persuasive, and Aria was a bad secret keeper.

"Fine! But promise to not think I'm crazy."

"Aren't you already." Kyle joked. Aria gasped as she pulled the phone away from her ear in mock hurt.

"Gosh why are yo so annoying? Well anyway...you know how in Tsubasa they travel through the dimensions." Aria played with the pen in her other hand as she came to the difficult part, "I-I may or may not be playing host for four dimension travelers right now."

"..." Aria waited awkwardly at the silence hoping and hoping that Kyle wasn't going to laugh in her face.

The silence was weighing down on Aria, she started getting worried, then "Really"

"Mhm!" Aria nodded enthusiastically even though she knew he couldn't see her.

"I'll be right over." Kyle hung up the phone without saying goodbye. Aria sat on her bed for a moment after he hung up, then slowly got ready to head downstairs. After breakfast, a small argument broke out over what was going to happen, but in the end they decided they would head downtown again and possibly check the garden one more time. They were all tense at the fact that nothing was getting done, and that they were all just sitting around wait for something to happen.

Aria ran down her stairs, excited to introduce Kyle to the group. She stopped as soon as she reached the living room.

Kurogane was laying face up on the floor with Fai on top on him, his head on the larger man's chest and Syaoran was sitting on the ground next to them restraining Mokona.

"I am not even going to ask." Aria said walking past the group and picked up Millie who was standing on a chair looking down at the group with an odd air of superiority.

"This is not what it looks like." Kurogane growled from under Fai. Aria raised an eyebrow at Syaoran, in inquiry of what really happened.

"I'm not really sure what happened." Syaoran said more than a little confused, "They just kinda fell and...well they cant get up."

"It's all the mage's fault! He tripped me with magic, and when I grabbed his wrist when falling something got screwed up with the spell and now we're stuck like this!" he ended his sentence yelling. He was looking down at Fai who weakly raised his head.

"Well I can't deny it. I'm not sure how we can get up either, I can't undo the spell without moving, and that's not really an option." Fai laughed nervously then dropped his head back on Kurogane's chest. "Though I can't lie, my Kuro-sama is very comfortable."

"Since when am I yours?! And even if you're enjoying yourself, I'm not!" The ninja yelled.

The doorbell rang.

"Oh that's Kyle! He's coming, I forgot to tell you, I was distracted" Aria said with a pointed look at the two men on the floor.

"Oh hell no!" Kurogane yelled, and with a great heave, pushed both himself and Fai from the floor and then pushed Fai off him.

Fai looked down at his hands and mumbled "That works."

"Hey guys! Come and meet Kyle." Aria yelled from the front door. She gave Kyle a look to tell him to try and understand. Aria also frowned, he wasn't very presentable. His black hair was sticking up more than usual, and instead of the contacts he usually wore, he was wearing his Ray-bans-esque back up glasses that made his face look too small. She waited as the four came to the door, the first reaction was not the one she had expected.

"You." Syaoran glared at the newcomer, dropping Mokona he ran up to Kyle and grabbing him by the collar baked the taller boy up against the wall

"Holy crap Syaoran!" Kyle yelled, part out of genuine surprise at being assaulted and then the surprise from seeing a manga character.

"What is it Syaoran?" Fai called coming up, he then stopped and looked at Kyle "Dr. Kyle." he whispered and leaned back against Kurogane in shock. He ninja supported Fai offhandedly and glared at Aria.

"You think it is funny bringing him here?"

"I have no idea what you mean!" Aria was panicking she looked at Kyle in Syaoran's grasp and began to see the likeness. Especially with his glasses on he resembled the doctor. He didn't have a ponytail, but his hair was the same, Aria now realized.

She sank to her knees staring at he beat friend. Wondering if this person really was the incarnation of Dr. Kyle in her world.

"Wait! Wait! I don't think I'm who you're looking for!" Kyle wriggled out of Syaoran's grasp and stood in front of the four with his hands above his head. "It seems like you have mistaken me for someone else. I'm a perfectly normal high school kid, I'm not some evil dick. Please don't decide to hate me." He looked at them pleadingly.

"He may be younger, but it's definitely the bastard." Kurogane growled "He always could talk a pretty picture. I don't trust him. What's your name kid?"

"Kyle Londat." he said not changing position, but Aria could see the realization in his eyes as he noticed the same thing she had, _'Kyle Rondart, his last name is Londat. That's another way to write that name from the romaji' _Aria had thought

"See that's close enough." Kurogane stated and Fai nodded in return.

"No, wait."Aria stepped in front of Kyle. "He's not evil. I don't care if he was evil in some other world-he's not in this one! I've known Kyle for my entire life, and he's never done anything evil." she looked around at the angry faces. "I don't give a crap what you all think. We're going now and Kyle's coming." She turned and opened the food to go outside, yelling at them all to follow.

Once Aria has turned her back, Kyle dropped his innocent look and gave them a cold stare then followed Aria out. He was followed a little while after by the rest of them after Aria had yelled again.

The car ride was tense. Even Mokona joined in the awkward silence. Aria drove with her hands gripping the wheel until her knuckles where white, Kyle, who was next to her was typing furiously on his phone, no doubt recording the meeting in detail. The the travelers and Mokona were stuffed in the back seat, Syaoran between the two men looking very uncomfortable.

It was a Monday, so they were able to park closer to the main street this time. It was early but still crowded. They made their way through the crowd in near silence. Fai and Syaoran would talk occasionally, but both Kurogane and Kyle stayed silent. They walked faster than they should have, rapidly making their way to the garden.

_'They should stop walking so fast! They're all so tall and have long legs and I'm stuck being short!'_ Aria thought to herself. She silently cursed her short legs as she struggled to keep with with them. She also noted that once again she was the only girl in a group of attractive guys.

As they walked past the drug store again Aria stopped. She was bothered again by not remembering why she knew those names. She was staring at the store front without noticing that no one had stopped for her. She stayed in her trying to remember trance until she was ran into by a shorter guy with light hair.

"Oh gosh I'm sorry." the teenager stammered he backed away. He had Brown eyes and light brown hair that was slightly uneven.

"He's always a spaz, don't take it personally." a taller, darker boy came up behind the brunette and poked him in the back almost causing the first too run into Aria again. She stared at the two bicker, they were from Legal Drug! She remembered now, Kazahaya and Rikuou. They were the main characters! She had never really read the manga, but she had heard of it multiple times.

Aria was brought out of her epiphany by Syaoran who had realized aria wasn't with them and ran back to get her. She briefly apologized for straying off then they ran back to the others.

"Where'd you go?" Kyle asked Aria quietly. He was hanging back from the tsubasa characters and talking softly. He was acting natural, but Aria could see the fear in his eyes and could see a little stiffness in his movements.

"I met Kazahaya and Rikuou."

"From Legal Drug?!" he was in shock, but seemed to be able to accept it now that he had seen Syaoran and crew.

"Kyle, are you okay?" she was concerned for her friend. He seemed to be stressing over the accusation that he was doctor Kyle.

"What do you think Aria?" he snapped "I've been a normal life for sixteen years then I am suddenly told-by manga characters not less- that I am the reincarnation of one of fiction's evil backstabbers. Does this mean I'm fated to be evil? Am I going to hurt everyone I care about?!" he whispered harshly, anger fresh and bright in his eyes.

"But Kyle we can't be sure." Aria tried to reassure him

"Yes we can. I saw their faces, I know they know I'm him." he was speaking very fast and was obviously angry. Kyle rarely got really mad, but when he did, it was impressive.

He sped up to a bit in front of the group leading them on to the garden. He had left Aria alone in the back, seemingly a loner. She ran to catch up with Fai, he was the one of the three she felt most comfortable with, even with his façade she liked him.

The silence was broken by Kurogane. He was talking to Syaoran and as they passed a small bakery, and a young woman accidentally ran into him and spilled coffee down his front.

"Watch where you're going bitch!" he yelled "How could you miss me?! God." he stalked of leaving the woman traumatized. Aria gave her a brief look of comfort, but the woman's eyes were cold and angry.

"That was uncalled for Kuro-chii." Fai chided

"Oh well, I'm pissed off and she got coffee on my shirt."

"You're wearing black, it can't be seen." Kyle looked back at him "Suck it up." the teen added. Kurogane would have lunged at the boy if Fai hadn't held him back.

They had reached the garden. This time the trip was less eventful. They weren't able to discern anything useful, and mainly only succeeded in further angering Kurogane by making him stay in such a sappily romantic area. They left worse for wear and tempers running high. They had decided to take the street parallel to main street back to the car instead of risking all the people again. They had almost gotten back to the car when a police car pulled over next to them.

The officer rolled down his window and called for them to stop, which Kurogane initially wanted to refuse, but was forced to by the rest of them.

"Excuse me, but you," he said pointing to Kurogane "Fit the description of a public indecency report."

"What are you talking about, I didn't do anything." he growled at the officer.

"Well we got a report of a suspicious man wearing a black, who is abnormally tall with tan skin, black hair, and_red _eyes, traveling with a group of three other men and one young girl. Which was also found disturbing. So if you don't mind, ease come into the car and let me take you to the station so we can sort this all out." the officer looked at the rest of them. "I don't need the rest of you to come by the way."

"So you're arresting me?" Kurogane asked menacingly.

"I'm afraid so." Kurogane's eyes narrowed and the rest of the group fidgeted uncomfortably.

"Well I'm sorry but I don't have time for that". Kurogane started running down the ally he was in front of, and the rest of them followed unsure what to do.

"Kurogane!" Aria yelled "Don't run! It makes you look guilty, and we aren't guilty if anything!"

"I don't care. How can we avoid that cop?" at the moment they had the advantage, being in a small ally that would emerge at a park. However the advantage would last forever.

Aria soon found herself falling behind. She was not a runner and would be the first to tell you such. So, especially with her lacking bight, she found herself falling more and more behind the others after only a few minutes. Much to her surprise, Kurogane suddenly fell back to her level, and with surprising ease, picked up Aria princess style, and continued running.

"What are you doing!?" Aria yelled. She would have struggled, but was afraid that he'd fall.

"I'm just as fast carrying you, and you were slowing us down. Now which way to go?!" They had arrived near the end of the park and were attracting many odd looks, but the _very_ angry aura Kurogane was giving off kept away anyone who might want to stop them. Aria quickly pointed them down to the small path across the street that ran between some houses and would end at the high school aria attended.

They continued like this for quite a while. The three guys running and Aria being held by Kurogane. Every so often Aria would have to give directions, and once they almost got caught. They had been forced to run on a more busy street and all of a sudden they heard a siren start and they found themselves being pursued but the cop. Luckily for them, a stop light turned red at just the right time and the cop was stuck behind a wall of traffic. They kept running until they reached a little used park at the end of the inner city. They all collapsed on the grass, all exhausted-except Aria. They say they're in silence for a moment, then after a minute or so, Fai began laughing and soon they were all laughing heartily for no apparent reason.


	7. Chapter 7

**Author's note **

Yaaa! It's chapter seven! I actually got this one up before I am supposed to be asleep(mwahaha). I hate proofreading! It's so annoying! As so as I finish these chapters I wanna upload them right away :(

This is my favorite chapter so far :3 even though it's short. This chapter has emotion in it so be prepared. I'm really had at writing emotional stuff, so stick with me and maybe I'll get better ;)

Kyle is kinda hard to portray. One of my guy friends is the base for his normal, or original personality, but it's really hard to get across on paper.

I'm sorry if u guys feel like I'm forgetting Mokona a lot, cuz I am. I don't like writing her for some reason.

Well I always forget what I have to say when I write these things so ya...

Please read and review! (y'all know I don't own the clamp guys right?)

~3

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Kurogane listen to Fai's laughter as he himself laughed somewhat awkwardly. For such a pure and entirely happy sound to be coming from the mage was a nice surprise to say the least.

The ninja didn't realize he was staring at Fai until the blonde turned around and gave him a questioning look. The mage then leaned over and whispered in Kurogane's ear "Why is Kuro-lovey staring? Take back what you said about 'not in a romantic way'?" Fai said with a smirk as Kurogane turned to face him, face red. Kurogane quickly pushed Fai's face away, hearing a satisfying yelp from as the man fell over.

When pushed over, Fai let himself fall over so he was next to Aria and Syaoran. The two teens were done laughing, but were still lying with contented smiles on the grass. The magician sat up, so now both himself and Kurogane were up, but the children were on the ground. Fai suddenly remember Kyle.

"Aria-chan!" he yelled. The young girl looked up in surprise, her face flushed with excitement.

"What?" she asked innocently. Fai looked around again, trying once more to find the dark haired youth.

"Aria, Kyle's not here." At the mention of Kyle, both Kurogane and Syaoran quickly turned their attention the other two.

"What!?" Syaoran gasped as Kurogane's eyes narrowed dangerously. They both thought that Kyle must be off doing something evil.

"Kyle's not here?" Aria stood up and looked around. She quickly scanned the park, not seeing anyone she began to run back to the street.

"He's not around." Kurogane grumbled.

"How can you tell?!" Aria asked, in slight panic. She was sure that Kyle was alright, but what if the police had caught him? What if he was giving them away?! Aria sat back down again, suddenly overwhelmed. She was overwhelmed from the adrenaline rush, from laughing, and now Kyle. She no longer new for certain that he wouldn't do anything horrible. Aria hated not being able to trust her best friend. How could they just go in and destroy the image of one of her most important people. It wasn't fair, Kyle didn't deserve that, _she_ didn't deserve this. She felt her anger rising up, and then bubbling over into exhausted sorrow.

"Why?" she asked with a slight sob. The sob caused Fai and Syaoran to look at the girl with worry, and Kurogane to just become more frustrated.

"Why did you guys have to tell me that Kyle's not a good person?! Now-now I can't trust him anymore." she tapered off into soft sniffles. Fai scooted over to the girl and put his arms around her.

"Im sorry that we made you doubt your friend Aria-chan. It's just the person we know as Kyle did many bad things to us, and to other people. It's not unusual to meet different incarnations of people in different worlds." Fai looked over at the other two travelers, "And we've even seen some people who aren't quite the same world-to-world. So it's entirely possible that this Kyle isn't really evil." Fai said in an attempt to cheer up Aria.

Aria rubbed her eyes and slowly pushed out of Fai's embrace to look at him directly.

"It's ok, I just got mad for no reason." Aria dropped her gaze, "I'm really just scared. That's all." she said quietly.

"Then you're just gonna have to push through that fear and keep going." Kurogane said matter-of-factly. Syaoran and Fai nodded their consent eagerly, causing Aria to smile again.

"Well then, let's get going!" she said enthusiastically.

"Get going with what exactly?" Kyle asked from behind the group.

"What is he doing here!?" Kurogane asked pointing at the youth and showing much more emotion than usual.

"I just got back from saving your butts. I explained everything to the cop and you're off the hook." he said with a glance at Kurogane. "And, now that that's done, we should be able to get a move on with whatever we have to do." he said bluntly.

"Hey Kyle, can I talk to you for a sec?" Aria asked tentatively.

"Huh? Whyyy?" Kyle whined. He drooped in a teasing manner and his personality went from cold to warm and happy.

"I get he sense he doesn't like us." Fai whispered to Kurogane, which caused Mokona to giggle from inside her backpack.

"Just come one." Aria said pulling Kyle a little bit away from the group. "Kyle, why are you acting so differently with them? You aren't being yourself, you're acting all cold and just mean?" she looked up at him, "Why? It's like you're proving that they're right? That you _are _evil. Because I know you're not, this isn't you."

At Aria's words Kyle's face hardened, then softened.

"I don't really know Aria, I just can't be nice to them. As cool as it is to meet them, I seem to not be able to help not liking them. I know I'm not acting right." the boy started jumping up and down in small fast hops, "They're not you, I'm not good with other people, you now that." he pleaded. Aria put her hands on his shoulders to stop his nervous jumps "Well can you try to be nice? Please?" Kyle went suddenly limp so that Aria was now hugging him and supporting his weight, but before he spoke again he stood up properly and then spoke into Aria's shoulder. "I'll try. But only for you, I will don't like them!" he said pulling away and then taking Aria's hand to lead her over to the others.

"Truce." Kyle stuck out his hand to Fai, who shook it uncertainly, but nodding in acknowledgment of the truce. Kyle did the same to Syaoran and Kurogane, the latter of which shook the hand with as much grumbling and protesting as possible.

Kyle clapped his hands together. "Now that's we're done with that, what's next?" he looked around expectantly at the four of them standing awkwardly in front of him. They were the only ones at the park, and they hadn't seen anyone else the entire time they had been here.

The park was made up primarily if a large grass field with some trees and bushes scattered strategically throughout. The end opposite to them housed a small playground and picnic area, but over where the five of them were there was just grass and some large trees reaching over the field.

The park was more than a bit isolated. It was tucked away in the corner of a residential area and then furthest edge came up right to the edge of the hills, so that there was only a fence between the artificially green grass of the well maintained park and the long an wild gold grass that blanketed all the hills at this time of year.

"I do have a idea." Syaoran said nervously. He toyed with his hands and was looking at them as if he found them very interesting. "I think we might be in an isolated enough spot for Fai to use some locator magic." he quickly looked over at Fai "Only if it's ok with you though!" he said nervously.

The mage walked over to the boy and rustled his hair, making it stick up even more. The blonde smiled at the brunette. "What do you think Aria, is this place isolated enough? Kyle?" The two city natives looked at each other contemplating. Kyle spoke first "I don't think anyone really comes here, honestly." he pushed up his glasses, it was a very nerdy, but very bad habit the boy had. "To be honest I think we could stay here for the next hour and not see anyone. Aria?" The girl leaned her head in thought. "We could probably pull it off. But I still think it'd be a good idea to stand behind one of the larger trees." Aria looked around for a moment then lead the group off to a suitably large tree. Kurogane held back the magician for a moment, grabbing the shorter man's arm to make him walk slower.

"Are you good with this, Fai?" he asked, concerned. Fai looked up at the man in surprise, he then grinned at the taller one, "I'll be fine Kuro-puu, I have plenty of magic nowadays. And anyway, I want to help Aria, she reminds me of someone special."

"The princess?" It wasn't hard to figure out who Fai was referring to, after Celes the ninja knew most of Fai's story, and he knew the man well enough to know that there wasn't some hidden love he was referring to. And Kurogane would be lying if he hadn't been reminded of the princess himself at times.

The mage just smiled softly and then jogged over to where the others were standing.

"So what do y'all want me to do?" he asked.

"Can you maybe do some locator magic, maybe something to help us find this feather?" Syaoran responded tentatively. The blonde nodded.

Fai straightened up and took a deep breath, suddenly a high pitched voice came from the backpack Fai was carrying. The magician's eyes widened and he hastily took of the pack and opened it.

"Don't do magic with me that close!" Mokona wailed. Fai murmured a quick apology to the creature and handed the pack to Kurogane. When giving the ninja Mokona, the blonde suddenly met Kurogane's eyes. The raven sensed a slight fear behind the mask that was put in place for the benefit of the others. Kurogane realized that Fai was letting him see this, the magician _wanted_ him to know that for some reason, using magic still frightened him. Kurogane smiled to himself and nodded at the mage, letting the smaller man know that he would be there and that he wouldn't let anything happen.

Fai smiled as he turned away. The magician once again stood up tall and took a deep breath closing his eyes, the tension was building in the air, a long, high crescendo that suddenly broke in a dramatic climax as Fai snapped his eyes open and shot his arm out to his sides, fully straightened. The air around the group began to rustle as Fai brought his hand up and began tracing the glowing script that was his magic. The letters slowly formed, glowing and pulsating with the same blue light that was now glowing in Fai's eyes. The magician closed his eyes again and put both his hands against the writing in the air. He was searching, trying to pinpoint the location of the feather.

"KUROGANE-SAN!" the high pitched scream ripped the air as Aria yelled as the ninja was suddenly enveloped by the ground beneath his feet. A chasm had been ripped open right under then man, and he was sinking into the ground at and alarming rate.

"HIS SWORD!" Aria yelled. All she was thinking was that if he ended up somewhere he'd need his protection, and if he would be buried alive down there... The long katana was quickly produced from Mokona and was handed to to sinking man by Syaoran.

Any hint of Fai's magic was gone now. The air was filled with a much more sinister feel, like nails on a chalkboard. The magician was now entirely focused on pulling at Kurogane's wrists in an attempt to rescue him. He turned his head to call for help and Aria and Syaoran saw the blonde's tear-streaked face, and they saw the horror and fear in his eyes. They both ran forward to try and help the blonde grabbing onto Kurogane's arms and the back of his shirt.

Kyle saw the emotion on Fai's face too. When Kyle saw the fear, the heart wrenching pain, he froze. How could one person care for the life of and other so much? The black haired youth stood in bewildered terror as his friend and her companions tried to save the larger man, but he could tell it was no use. The ninja was already in up to his shoulders and one arm was under, they weren't going to get him. It was chaos to watch, all the emotional screaming and the tears, it was a bit much for the normally rather unfeeling teen. Kurogane was yelling at Fai to let him go and Fai was just screaming back that he wouldn't, he wouldn't. Aria and the kid had given up and were now just watching the two men with a look of such pain on their faces, Kyle felt momentarily confused at the emotion before mentally slapping himself for thinking that way. And then Kurogane was gone.

It was pitch black, and that was annoying the heck out of the ninja. He couldn't see _anything_! He could walk tough. He put one hand to the wall of whatever he was in and started moving forward, and that took all he had. He knew that right above him, Fai was most likely crying his heart out, and blaming himself for whatever had just happened. He knew he should be there, he should be protecting Fai, protecting him from the evil that had swallowed him into the earth, and from himself. He was well aware that Fai would blame himself, and unless something big happened, the mage would let himself slip into depression and self-destruction. But he kept walking, right now his own life was his first priority.

He didn't know how long he walked, but he kept moving with one hand on the wall of the tunnel. And then, without him even noticing, it began to get brighter, the ninja realized he could see. He started to run, and he soon found himself out of the tunnel and in front of the largest tree he had ever seen.

Fai sat collapsed on the ground, tears staining his beautiful face, nothing in his hand but a fistful of dirt. Syaoran and Aria stood behind the blonde, watching as the grown man cried and pounded the ground underneath him, at first strong and determined, then the hits became soft slaps mixed in with the crying and the sobs of Kurogane's name. He finally stopped. He just sat there for a moment, then he collapsed into Aria, who was now sitting next to him, and let out a cry, this inhuman, horrible wail of pain, and loss, and fear all at once.

_End note:_

_Emotional chapter! I hope you guys felt something in this chapter. I was a bit sad when I wrote it (lol lame) From now on the chapters are probably gonna be short and fast paced like this one was. I have the rest of the plot all out in my head, but it's kinda going to drag on a but at the end I think..._


	8. Chapter 8

Ya ya I made y'all wait a week I'm sport I'm a horrible person, but school is A but and I was just busy in general. So yep I'm sorry for this, but I didn't completely forget you guys. It's amazing how easy it would be to just let this story die and not finish it, it'd be do much easier!

Well I'm sure you'd like to read my story, so here it is, chapter eight!

~3

And idk if I proofread this so, sorry

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Why didn't this make sense? He knew it should, but it didn't. He would feel bad for Fai, he should want to help him find Kurogane, but he didn't, he just kept thinking how lame Fai was being and how if he was ever gonna get beloved Kuro-sama back he'd have to do something, and it scared him. Was he really some heartless bastard who didn't care for anyone but himself? No, he was just realistic, they weren't getting anywhere watching Fai cry like a baby, when he was like at least a hundred years old.

Kyle was momentarily struck with how weird it is that Fai is really that old, he acted like he was five.

He watched the scene in front of him with detachment. His anger slowly rising at both Fai, and himself. Why was this man so self-destructive and pathetic. And had he always thought his way? Had he been normal until the travelers came and told him he was destined to be evil.

Fai was in bad shape. Aria knew this, and she knew Syaoran realized it too, and she also believed that, in his own way, Kyle did too. She knew he could do something about this. He could probably use some sort of magic to find Kurogane, or at least he could probably trace his aura or something like that.

"Hey...Fai-san, it'll be okay, I'm sure we can find Kurogane. We aren't helpless, and neither is Kurogane. You realize we could have never seen this coming?" she sat down in front of Fai. Syaoran was already at his side watching over the magician worriedly.

Fai sat on the ground, his legs bent beneath him in that awkwardly turned in 'W' thing that Aria's ballet training forbade her to do. His head was hanging s his chin rested on his chest and his hand were quietly resting in his lap. He could have looked tired, even peaceful, if it weren't for the violent sobs that kept shaking his lithe frame.

The blonde slowly raised his head. And in the usually cheerful face, Aria and Syaoran saw the pain and sadness of someone far older than Fai appeared. All the cheer had flown from his face, and the light in his eyes was out, even his hair seemed to be less shiny.

The blonde looked at Aria, he opened his mouth as if to speak several times, but each time he closed it again, unable to think of anything to say to the wide-eyed teen.

"Fai, do you think you can get up, maybe help us find Kurogane? I'm sure you've got some magic that could help us." Aria pleaded.

The light slowly returned to Fai's eyes, but aria soon realized it was the wrong type of light. Aria backed away as Fai's eyes began to burn with malice.

"Why would you want me to use magic again, Aria-chan? Do you want to be swallowed up by the ground too? Or do you have some plan, plotting against me so that soon I'll be all alone and you will all be having fun without me?" The magician's voice dove dangerously low, he spoke slowly and with unbearable anger. Why was Fai so scary when he was angry? He must have learned from Ashura.

"Hey Fai, don't get mad Aria, she just wants to help you find Kurogane." Syaoran spoke up. "It's not your fault." he added quietly.

"It's not my fault?" Fai said in that same horrible voice. "Then whose fault is it?" he looked up at the sky, his head moving in an odd jerky way. "It's probably better, he's probably happier without me, all of you probably would be. Maybe I should just disappear."

"No Fai-san, you can't!" Aria yelled "Fai we dot want you to leave, we need you to help us find Kurogane!"

"He probably doesn't want to be found." the mage spoke this last line as if it were the most normal thing in the world, just a normal suggestion that might be made by anyone

"Not to mention, if I do anything else I'll probably just hurt the-"

The mage was cut off with a resounding slap. He looked up and saw Kyle, his face red with anger.

"That hurt." Fai said bringing his hand to gingerly touch the side of his face that had been slapped.

"That is one big ass tree" Kurogane looked up at the tree in front of him. It was freakishly huge, even bigger than Tomoyo-hime's Sakura tree. It was so wide that it would take at least three Kurogane's to encircle the trunk. It has to be at least a hundred meters tall, but then, Kurogane had always been bad at measuring distances when they didn't directly pertain to his job or safety.

"What the hell!?" Kurogane yelled as the backpack on his back started to wriggle around on his back. As a small high pitched voice filtered through the backpack, Kurogane groaned as he remembered that he has Mokona with him.

"You've got to be kidding be." he said as he pulled of the pack and extracted the small, furry animal out of the pack.

"Where is Mokona?! Why isn't anyone else here?! Where is Faiiii?! That's a biiiiiig tree!" the small animal forgot all her worries and instantly begged to climb the tree.

"No you have to stay here. And what about all that other stuff you were worried about? That doesn't matter anymore?" Kurogane looked down at the now exited pork bun in his arms suddenly went back to being a scared and worried pork bun.

"Yaa...that's important too." she sulked.

"Well, to fill you in, Fai was doing magic and all of a sudden I got sucked into the ground, and then I walked through an absurdly dark tunnel and ended up here." the ninja looked around observing his surroundings. "But god know where here is." he muttered.

They were in a small valley dominated by the giant tree. The golden grass stretched unbroken for as far as he could see, which want really all that far, given his vantage point at the bottom of a valley. The one other noticeable feature of the little valley was the giant gash in the ground right next to the tree. It was almost as if the ground had been torn apart by some giant's hands. Or maybe that's what happens durning an earthquake...

Kurogane quickly rushed over to the gorge, realizing tat it was most likely a big clue in where to find the feather.

"Kuro-pii..."

"It's Kurogane!"

"hehe sorry, it's just, I feel the feather now, and it feels much much closer." Mokona said nervously.

"What?!" Kurogane exploded. He was very uncomfortable having to deal with magic without Fai around. He didn't get it(unless it was a sword incantation, then it was easy) and nine times out of ten he was gonna mess it up, and Kurogane had a feeling that he was going to have to deal with this himself.

Well he had to, and Kurogane wasn't going to chicken out of any fight, even a magic one.

"Do you know where the feather actually is?" he asked.

"Well I have a guess, and it makes a lot of sense. I am pretty sure that the feather is _in_ the tree. It would explain all the protectiveness that we've been feeling, I bet the tree is mad at all the pollution and stuff that people have been doing and is tying to fix it with the feather's power."

"But trees can't think, or get mad for that matter." Kurogane pointed out, he would have thought that was obvious, but apparently the pork bun thought that _feathers_could give _trees_ conscience by the way she was explaining things.

"Well whatever, right now let's work on getting in back." He moved towards the tree and the gorge-thing once more. Making his way quickly through the knee high grass.

He thought that it could be that hard to get the feather from the tree. I mean it's a non-sentient life form, how much of a great could it pose? Kurogane was mod worried about finding his way back to the others. He had no clue where he was, and the tunnel that had brought him here had closed up right after he had gotten out of it. And he needed to get back to Fai. He was worried what the magician was gonna do.

"Okay, this tree is freaking huge." Kurogane was standing right in front of the trunk and looking up the gnarled growth and into the think canopy of leaves.

"Kurogane... I think the tree is moving." Mokona whimpered.

"What? Trees don't move." Kurogane said still looking straight up. This tree was giant and to be honest it confused the ninja.

"I think this one does." she added. Kurogane heard a sudden rustle and quickly lunged to the side before a branch hit him square in the back.

"What the fuck?!" the raven drew his sword, grateful that he had it now. "Why. Do. I. Have. To. Do. Stupid things like fighting trees?!" Kurogane yelled in between slices at the tree branches which snaked around like snakes in the air, cleverly jabbing and swatting at Kurogane. But not freaking tree was going to get the better of this man, not Nihon's greatest warrior. He sat old light on the balls of his feet, waiting for the next round of attacks.

"The hell was that for?" he mumbled to himself. Then he heard the yelping.

He looked up and saw Mokona wrapped up in the branches hanging several feet above his head. He cursed himself silently for letting the pork bun be stolen away from him. Who knew that trees could be so mean? He bent his legs in preparation to jump up to Mokona when suddenly the ground beneath his right foot gave away.

"Not again!" Kurogane yelled and quickly pulled his foot out of the hole, he would not fall for this twice. However this was not the same trick.

Just as Kurogane pulled his foot out, think vines shot up from the ground wrapping themselves around his leg. Kurogane swig at them with his sword, but he couldn't do much without hitting his leg. Before he knew it, the vines had moved from his leg and were now incasing his midsection and both of his arms, so that is sword was dangling uselessly at his side.

The very angry ninja heard the sounds of Mokona laughing at him from above. How could the fur ball be laughing when she was in the same situation?

Kurogane could not believe that a tree had beaten him, a freaking tree!

"GODDAMNIT!" Kurogane yelled to no one in particular. "HOW THE FUCK DID A FUCKING TREE MANAGE TO TIE ME UP?! THAT BASTARD!" Kurogane continued to yell, his screams laced with every profanity in both English and his native Japanese. When he finally stopped cursing the world he noticed that he was actually buried knee deep in the ground.

"Ahh just go to hell" the ninja muttered as the ground sudd suddenly gave away completely. The raven fell through the ground once more, and as he fell he was vaguely reminded of a fairy tale he had heard in some world. It was something about a girl falling into this weird world of make believe with talking plants and a red queen.

Well he was certainly falling for a long time, he should have fit the ground already, but instead of hitting the ground, something fell on his head. Kurogane looked up and saw that Mokona was falling with him and had bumped into his head. The manjuu was screaming with all her might and was now latched onto Kurogane's collar, so that her screams were projected directly into his ear.

He was about to comment on the annoyance when he was suddenly jerked to a stop by the vines that were apparently still holding him. He let out a loud groan as the air was nicked out of him. When he finally got his bearings he heard voices softly talking a little while away. He couldn't quite make out what they were saying, but he felt sure they must be a threat.

"Who's there?!" He yelled into the darkness. He was momentarily blinded by the beam of a flashlight. As his eyes adjusted to the light, he saw to teenagers standing in front of him. One was tall with dark hair and fan skin, the other was shorter and fairer and oddly resembled a cat.

"Well, it seams we've got company." the taller one mused as the blonde was jumping at the sight of another person.

Kyle's eyes were glowing with aged towards the magician.

"Of course it hurt, you bastard!" he yelled. "Why are you just sitting around here wallowing in self pity? It's sickening to watch! If you want something to happen, get off your ass and do it! If you wanna find him, do something!" he took a breath, "I don't know if he's just your friend, or if he's your damn lover, but Kurogane's pretty important to you Fai, and absolutely _nothing _is gonna happen if you just wait her think that this whole thing is your fault, none of us have the capability to find him so do something!"

Kyle stopped yelling, his face was flushed and he was breathing heavily. Aria took this chance to say something, "Fai, I'm pretty sure that Kurogane wants to be found, I mean he can't just go traveling the dimensions by himself, what about Syaoran? And you? He can't just leave you two."

The three teens looked at Fai, the blonde was still staring at Kyle, his eyes wide in shock and his mouth open in a small O. Fai dropped his head once more, and his shoulders began to shake once more. It seemed that he was crying, until he threw back his head and they could see he was laughing. The mage was laughing heartily, each laugh racking his body. The teens stood there very confused, had Fai finally just lost it? The laughs gradually died down into small chuckles and then stopped all together as Fai stood up, a maniac grin on his face.

"I think he's gone crazy." Kyle whispered as Fai hagan to speak.

"You really don't get it." he said to them, his voice oddly tinted with madness. "All I ever do is hurt people. My family, my country, and then my King. Syaoran, you should understand, you saw what happened to me in Celes, you know my true self. I'm done with pretending to be a good person! I've don't to much harm to the world, i killed the one pure person I've ever met, I KILLED HIM!" he started walking away,

"But you didn't kill Fai! He chose to save you, Yuui!" Aria shouted to him as he walked away. He instantly stopped, frozen by Aria's words. The girl capped her hands over her mouth as she realized what she'd done. The magician slowly walked back, his eyes now filled with curiosity.

"What was that?"

_End note:_

_1) if you were wondering, when aria was talking about the way Fai was sitting and dance. In ballet you have to be turned out, and siting that was us very turned in, so I dunno if that explanation even made sense but ya. _

_So I hope that it wasn't too bad, or they didn't seem too OOC. I am bad at writing angst, heck I'm bad at writing in general._

_Sorry for the lack of Syaoran-kun this chapter, I'll try and make up for it late_

_And YES I MADE A _TREE _THE BAD GUY! I really have no idea where that came from and I hope it doesn't weird you guys out to much, hey I'm being original, I will write you something if you can find another person who used a tree as the antagonists...please don't take that seriously._

_And thank you to anyone who bothers to read my rantings, I have fun with these. Please review_

_...perhaps that was to subtle_

_REVIEWWWWWW! Jk ily _


	9. Chapter 9

**Author's note:**

Yaaaay chapter nine is up! Finally... Yeathat whole update every Thursday thing.. I tried I really tried, I just can't with school and everything else. And this weekend was homecoming weekend and I just had no motivation until Sunday night when I suddenly felt obligated to finish before the weekend was over.

So now the whole Thursday update is really just a formality. Like I'll try, but it probably won't happen so yea! But I promise I won't let this story die!

And YAAA! I put Kaza and Rikuou in this now! Ahahaha I love them and I dont how care unreasonable it is for them to be there I want them to be! So deal!

I hope you guys enjoy this chapter and keep reviewing. Really I loooove reviews and they are honestly the only reason this story hasn't died yet.

Soooo, without furher ado, here's chapter nine!

* * *

"Who are you two?" the ninja asked tersely, he wasn't going to trust just any random person he found in an underground tunnel.

"I'm Kazahaya, and this big jerk is Rikuou." the smaller to the two stated "And who might you be?"

"My name's Kurogane." Kurogane answered "Care to explain to me why you're down here too?"

"Well that's kinda a long story..." Kazahaya started, "You see, our boss asked us to come out here for some reason, and the all of a sudden that big tree began attacking us, and then ya, we ended up down here. We aren't gonna hurt you or anything, we want to get out just as much as you do." the brunette finished.

"Well how are we supposed to get out of here!? We're in an underground lair thing, created by a stupid tree!" Kurogane yelled

"Oh yea, speaking of that, do you have any ideas why a tree is acting like that? Kazahaya said, "As far as I know trees don't move, unless they're in Harry Potter movies."

"Kaza, Harry Potter's not real." it was the first time the taller had spoken, his voice was low and monotonous, but with a noticeable hint of sarcasm.

"You never know Rikuou! That tree was a freaking whomping willow!"

"Whatever."

Kurogane watched the exchange with interest. The two reminded him of Watanuki and that other guy who was always hanging around the wizard. What was his name, Doumeki right? And he'd heard about this Harry Potter a few times before, but what the hell was a whomping willow?

"Can we stop arguing like girls and work on leaving?" Kurogane's voice said. The ninja looked down to where Mokona was laughing in his arms.

"I think I did a good job impersonating Kuro-muro, all mean and gruff." the bunny thing said in her normal voice.

"What in the world?" Kazahaya breathed.

"Voice impression is one of Mokona's 108 secret-"

"I know that, dammit!" Kurogane cut her off "But don't pretend to be me! It ends badly!" he said throwing Mokona, only to have the animal caught by Rikuou. Mokona then preceded to firmly attach herself to the boy's head, much to his irritation.

As if fascinated by the creature, Kazahaya walked over to Rikuou and began poking the creature. As he prodded he mused about what it could be, ignoring the manjuu's complaints that it tickled.

Kazahaya finished observing Mokona and moved his attention to the teen she was clinging to. Rikuou was seething under the fur ball. He was desperately trying to pull the thing off his face to no avail.

"Kaza, help he get this off!" he managed to say in a very angered voice

Kazahaya, however, was too busy laughing his butt off at the larger teen's futile attempts to help him.

"I'm sorry!" he said in between bursts of laughter. "I really shouldn't be laughing." the lithe boy's attempts to hold in his laughter failed as he gave in to the full bodied laughs.

Kurogane didn't get what so funny. That Rikuou was being traumatized by Mokona's usual tricks, there wasn't anything funny about that.

"Okay, we need to get out of here." Kurogane said loudly, interrupting the two teens. "That should be our first priority."

"Well how are we supposed to get out of we don't even know what it is?" Rikuou snapped back "You think that we haven't been trying to find a way out since we got here?!" Rikuou said now that Mokona had been successfully removed.

"Well I know a bit more about what's going on than you do." Kurogane stated. "Mokona, can you sense the feather here?"

"Yup! The feather's power is really strong here!" she looked around. "It's almost like it surrounds us!" she said excitedly.

"A feather?" Kazahaya said incredulously.

"It'd would be more correct to say a memory, but yea a very very powerful feather."

"I just can't take that seriously." Rikiou mumbled under his breath. Kurogane ignored the comment and proceeded to ask Mokona about the feather.

"Where does it feel strongest?"

"Up!" the fur ball said, and then "Kurogane!" she yelled "The ceiling's falling!"

The three suddenly looked up to see a large part of the ground above them falling. They quickly dodged out of the way and started running under their breath. They sprinted through the tunnels, running away from the rumble of the collapse that wasn't getting quieter.

"What's going on?!" Kazahaya yelled as they ran

"How should I know!?" Rikuou yelled back.

Then they fell silent and continued to race through the halls. And Kurogane notices that the tunnels had been getting lighter. At first they had been guides by only the flashlight, causing the three to be tripping constantly, but lately Kurogane found that he could actually see where he was going. The ninja was about to point this out to the others, when he turned a sharp corner and found himself at a dead end.

He stopped and swore loudly. Kazahaya and Rikuou followed suit a little less colorfully.

"What are we supposed to do now?!" Rikuou asked.

"Good question, kid." Kurogane replied, suddenly noticing that he didn't have to yell to be heard over the rumbling anymore. He quickly turned around and saw that the ceiling was no longer falling, but a wall of earth just like the one that was now behind him. Kurogane swore loudly again and began to mumble about how they were really never gonna get out now.

Kurogane was interrupted by Kazahaya, who seemed to have found the earth above them very interesting.

"I think that's how we get out." he said pointing up. The other two quickly moved over next to the boy and looked up.

Above them it was light, but it wasn't the light of the sun, it was a weird greenish light. The light seemed to be coming from a hollow tube-like thing above them. It was tall and the light made it hard to make out, but it looked almost like the walls were made of smooth bark.

"What the hell is that?" Kurogane wondered.

"I don't know. But I think it might be the tree." Kazahaya said.

"Kaza, that makes no sense, you know that trees aren't hollow."

"Hey, maybe it's an illusion made by the feather!" Mokona pipped up.

"That would be fitting." growled Kurogane. "Do you think you could get us up the Mokona?"

"Ummmm yea!" Mokona instructed the three to stand close together and began working her magic. It was almost similar to when they were transported from world to world, but Mokona was only moving them this time. They were sweep of their feet and into the air and began rising to the top. When they were about to go in Kurogane began to wonder what they were going to once in there. Was Mokona just gonna keep flying until they hit a dead end?

Kurogane's question was answered when all of a sudden, the area's dimensions switched. Instead of heading up, they were now standing on the walls that as been on either side. It was as if the whole tube had suddenly turned on its side.

As they got their bearings they realized that they couldn't see back were they came, it was just a wall of that greenish light. And to their other side was a hallway made out of soft and shiny wood, polished so that you could see your reflection in its deep brown surface. The walls reflected the glow from the green light, giving the whole thing a rather other worldly effect.

After standing there for a second, Kazahaya ran off into the hall against Rikuou's demands and quickly returned with the news that they were in a maze.

"Dammit!" both Rikuou and Kurogane swore.

"Why are you guys upset? I love mazes!" Kazahaya said excitedly. "All

You have to do is keep on hand on the wall and eventually you'll find away out! Come on!" Kazahya quickly drew them into the maze and set of into the labyrinth.

"I don't think this will work..." Rikuou mumbled but was quickly silenced by Kazahya, who refused to believe that his method could be flawed.

So Kurogane and Rikuou grudgingly followed Kazahaya deeper and deeper into the odd, glowing maze. Kazahya was talking excitedly to Mokona throughout the walk, while Rikuou and Kurogane remained silent. They walked for a long time. Turn after turn passed, but they never seamed to make any progress. They didn't hit any dead ends, but they saw no signs of an end at all. Even Kazahya began to get bored after awhile.

But then all of a sudden, around one especially sharp turn, they found themselves in a little clearing. It was circular, and had the odd walls on all sides. It was a dead end, but as the three walked dejectedly to the middle of the clearing they suddenly fell through the floor and were in free fall.

All three men were falling from what seamed to be the top of the tree. It was as if they had all been climbing to the top and had suddenly fallen down. They were quickly approaching the ground, and they knew that they had to do something. Kurogane yelled at Mokona to get her to stop their fall, but the fur ball was to busy falling to do any sort of magic. They desperately tried to grab and branches on the way down, but right before they hit the ground, the branches grabbed them.

The moving vines had saved them. Grabbing them around the middle and then depositing them on the ground with their breath knocked out.

"Shit!" Kurogane said once he could get enough air to talk.

"Shit shit shit!" Kazahaya repeated after him. Then they all fell back onto the ground gasping for breath.

"What was that?" Fai asked menacingly

"You're screwed Aria." Kyle said

"Wait what's going on?"

"Are you in on this too!?"

"Fai calm down!"

"WHAT IS IT!?" They were all talking at once, Fai asking about what aria knew, Kyle defending her, Syaoran stuck in the middle. The noise rose into a cacophony of sound, each one yelling, impossible to tell one person from the next. Until Fai silenced them all by causing a small explosion to go off above their heads.

The explosion caused Aria to fall down onto her knees. Her hands clapped over her mouth, and shaking. She hadn't meant to slip, and she certainly hadn't expected Fai to be so mad. He knelt down next to her and grabbed her by the shoulders

"What-" he took a deep breath "What do you know about Fai?"

Aria's breath caught in her throat at the pain in Fai's eyes, she turned to Kyle, desperately asking him to help her out of this

"Just tell him." was all the black haired teen had to say. Syaoran looked from person to person, having no clue what was going on. He started to ask Kyle, but then decided to just listen.

"I-I know everything." Aria said quietly. "I know your whole story," she looked up at Syaoran. "All of yours. I know that fai was born with a twin, and that his real name is Yuui. They were considered bad luck and locked in a tower away from everyone else for many years" Aria was crying softly now. "Fei Wang Reed came to you and offered filet one of you escape. Fai, the original Fai, decided to let you live and sacrifice himself. Yuui went on to live with Ashura, who turned crazy and killed everybody, and you think it's all your fault! IT'S NOT! Come on Fai! How many times do people have to tell you?! No one blames you! And Kurogane most of all! Why do you keep believing that? WHY!? Why?.. Why, Fai? You're a beautiful person, why won't you believe it?" she looked up at the man, who was now crying with her. His eyes wide open.

"How did you?"

"There's a manga on earth about you guys. It was written by a group called CLAMP, you must have met them at one point." Kyle said quietly.

Both Syaoran and Fai gasped. "Really?!" Syaoran breathed. Both Kyle and Aria nodded enthusiastically. The four all sat there in silence for a long time. Not moving not speaking. Then all of a sudden, Fai looked up at Aria, the sadness in his eyes replaced by cold determination.

"Okay, so how are we gonna find Kuro-chichi?" he said, his voice infused with his typical happiness.

But Aria wasn't convinced. She didn't trust Fai not to lie about this, she didn't believe that've wouldn't just put on his mask and hide from reality.

"Are you sure you're okay with this?" she asked seriously. Fai's smile faltered and fell into a small grin.

"I think I am."

"Umm... Hey Fai," Syaoran pipped up. "Can't you locate Kurogane pretty easily, I mean, can't you like trace his energy or something, or Mokona! Can't you trace Mokona?" he sad eagerly.

"Uh-" Fai looked up at Syaoran and slowly stood up. He smiled and then started to laugh. It began to build and he was soon in full blown laughter.

"I was so-so obsessed with my own self-pity, that I completely forgot that I could locate them so easily. I could find Kuro-sama almost anywhere!" he said through bursts of laughter. "I can trace both Kuro-kyuu and Mokona-especially Mokona's-energy just like that!" he closed his eyes and he glowed slightly then his eyes snapped open and he pointed energetically toward the hills.

They hurriedly followed Fai who had bound of into the hills behind the park, pulling Aria along with him, all the while laughing about his own melodramatic behavior.

Aria wondered how he could be so happy so soon after being so depressed just a moment ago. But the magician seamed to be genuinely happy, his smile wide and his eyes shining.

They jogged along towards where Fai had determined Kurogane was. It was rather hard to keep up with Fai's up-tempo pace because they had go over several hills. But when the crossed over the last one, they were looking down at a small valley, clearly dominated by a very large, very old oak tree. Aria informed the group that it was over one hundred years old, and used to be very symbolic in the area, before people had better things to do.

Even Kyle, who had made the journey under silent protest. He saw no reason to rescue Kurogane and Mokona, he was sure that they'd end up finding Fai some way or another, and he just wanted them out of his life, but to be honest, he was curious about what was going on, so he had grudgingly complied.

As the group walked towards the tree, they noticed two things: one, that there was a giant gash in the ground, and two that three people had sued Roy appeared near the top of the tree and were now falling quickly to the ground.

Fai immediately recognized Kurogane and once again started running, this time at full speed. He ran towards the tree calling for Kurogane. He wouldn't let him die, he wouldn't lose him again so soon. As the other three struggled after Fai, calling at him to calm down, they realized that the tree was moving and that vines of some sort were rushing done to catch the three falling people. And right as Fai stopped in front of the tree, Kurogane was suddenly jerked up, and then dropped harshly on the ground.

"Shit!" he yelled. One of the people who had been falling with Kurogane echoed his words. And then the three of them lay back down on the ground as Fai looked on in confusion.

_End note:_

_Once again I'm sorry how OCC(or is it OOC?) they're getting. I'm so bad at emotion._

_...I used to have so much to say down here but now I don't got anything. Well I hope you liked it._

_And I did a half-assed job at editing again...I really need to stop posting when I has no energy_

_Please reveiw!_


	10. Chapter 10

**Author's note **

Here's chapter ten! Y'all better be happy this is up, because I am soooo tires right now, but I felt like a terrible person for making my like ten readers wait for this.

Oh I just want to say that I got NO reviews for that last chapter and that made author-sama very sad. But I still love anyone who reads my story

And I wanna say thanks to Writes Like Crazy for bing awesome and caring about my puny little story. She(ur a girl right?) bugged me about updating and I was happy :3

So yea, morale- REVIEW...please*puppy dog face*

Ummm...this chapter is short, and pointless, I made them talk for a chapter and I feel pathetic. And I have no excuse for the crummy chapter except that I'm lazy.

(secret: hey this story's like over 3/4 done! I'm so excited!)

~ 3 wow tht intro was long O.o

* * *

Kurogane laid back on the long grass, waiting for the adrenaline to leave his system. As he laid he heard a familiar rustle of voices that didn't belong to Kazahaya and Rikuou. He slowly opened his eyes, letting them adjust to bright light. As his vision came to, a familiar blonde face came into focus.

"Fai?"

"KURO-RIN!" the calls sounded simultaneously as Fai and Kurogane spoke. Fai collapsed onto the ninja and began blubbering about how much he has missed him and how scared he had been. Kurogane looked on as the magician sobbed. He awkwardly patted him on the back before unceremoniously yanking him off.

"Goodness mage, calm down." Kurogane said

"But I was so worried!" Fai offered lamely.

The two continued to bicker as the others began to question Kazahaya and Rikuou.

The two teens were starting to get up slowly, with much complaint. The fall had been painful even though it hadn't killed them. They hadn't been expecting such and ordeal. Kakei had told them to go up to the big tree and try and figure out what was wrong. They hadn't known something was wrong, everything seemed pretty normal to them at the time. But once they had gotten up there and had to fight a tree, it was pretty safe to conclude something was wrong.

"So, who might you be?" Syaoran asked the two boys

"I'm Rikuou"

"I'm Kazahaya, but you can call me Kaza." the two responded. Aria suddenly remembered that these were the two guys she had seen at the store, they were Kazahaya and Rikuou from Legal Drug! It took all of her willpower not to do something stupid. She was very compelled to squeal, jump, run, or do something to let out her rising excitement. But she stood there and bit her lip, she wouldn't look like an idiot in front of them.

Fai and Kurogane slowly stood up, there reunion complete, but fai was clinging on to Kurogane's arm like a lifeline. Kurogane seemed to have either given up trying to get the mage to let go, or had stopped caring. This caused a bit of confusion on the part of Kazahaya and Rikuou.

"What's their deal?" Rikuou inquired.

"It's best not to ask." Syaoran replied. He looked over at the two, "I mean, I don't think anyone could properly explain it to you." Aria and Kyle nodded in consent.

When Kyle nodded, Aria realized that she hadn't seen him since they got to the tree. She felt like a bad friend for not noticing, but a certain part of her was suspicious. What if he had just gotten here? What had he been doing? She looked over at him and found him deep in though, his brow furrowed and arms crossed firmly across his chest. What was so interesting?

Kyle saw Aria staring at him from the corner of his eye. He tried to relax his features, he couldn't let her know what he had just seen

~~flashback~~

He was grudgingly running toward the giant tree, and he couldn't help feeling a bit underwhelmed. He was glad that they were gonna find Kurogane and all, but he didn't really see anything interesting about the tree, or even about the gash in the ground, it was probably just a side-effect of the earthquake.

He was behind everyone else, it wasn't that he couldn't keep up, he just didn't feel the need to sprint. He saw Aria turn around to look at him, she almost tripped. Before she did, Kyle saw the fire in her eyes. She was so excited. He figured she would be, she was living her dream right now. Unfortunately for him, Aria's dream had bitch-slapped him in the face saying that he was actually a reincarnation of an evil CLAMP universe character. He couldn't say he appreciated that.

He had just been running with his thoughts until a wave of pain hit him. It was as if he had ran into a wall. And suddenly his head felt like it would burst. He was in so much pain he couldn't make more than a whisper of sound as he fell to the ground, now nearly hidden by the long grass.

Make it stop, make it stop! He couldn't focus, couldn't think, couldn't tell up from down. For that brief moment, be was all pain. His entire existence was limited to the pain drilling through his skull. And then when he came to, he wasn't himself.

He was looking down on the others. They were done running and were now talking to Kurogane and the two people with them. He couldn't hear what they were saying, but he was suddenly filled with a terrible hatred for all of them. He couldn't stand them, he couldn't stand what they, and the others like them were doing to his home, to _his_land. He had been here first. Then they had come with heir axes and fires and started killing the earth, they took his family from him and built over their homes with their ugly polluting buildings that just say there. He wanted to destroy it all. He wanted to rip the earth clean of the ugly humans, they had to go. They had to go!

He was no longer looking at the humans. He was seeing into the body of the tree, he felt it relish in its new power. The power to control the tremors, to change the land back to what it should be. He saw the feather, in the very heart of the tree. The feather had created a shell of intertwining branches and leaves to protect itself. To protect itself in it's world of teen light and smooth wood. The small room the feather was in seemed to just glow. It also didn't seem to fit into normal space, as if the feather had created a new magical dimension for itself inside the tree, so that no one could find it. No one could take away it's power.

A strong tremor shook the ground as Kyle finally came to, lying in the grass in a cold sweat. It took a moment for him to remember to breathe. He gasped in air, eyes wide wondering what had just happened. He wasn't really an environmentalist, he usually just went about his life without really caring. But his sister did, she was always going on about recycling and stuff. But he'd never been that way, so why was he having these thoughts?

As he sat there in the grass, leaves from the tree blew over his head. Almost without think, he reached up to grab one. As he looked at the leafy in his hand, he had a realization. He quickly sat up and plucked another lead out of the air.

The tree. It had been the tree's thoughts, somehow amplified by the feather. For some reason they had invaded his head, he now knew what the tree wanted. He felt it's pain. He looked back up at the tree and pointed near the middle of its large trunk.

That's where it was. That's how you got the feather. He didn't know why he knew it, but he did. He suddenly knew how to get the feather, he could jut go there and take it. But did he want to?

Kyle slowly stood up, and as he started moving towards the tree he realized he didn't. Why should he give away the tree's one defense against humanity. Sakura didn't need anymore feathers. And why spoil the fun of watching the others work to find the feather? A small grin graced his features as he broke into a run. He ran toward the tree and the others savoring the wind through his hair, and the smell of the clean, fresh air up in the hills. He wanted to stay in that moment, but all to soon his thoughts were pierced by more prevailing thoughts as he came up on the rest of the group. They were questioning Kurogane and Fai's sexuality, which wasn't that difficult to do. But he just nodded along with Aria as if he knew what was going on.

(~~flashback has caught up with real time~~)

"So why are you here again?" Syaoran asked the two boys.

"Our boss told us to go check this place out. He said something was wrong, and I'd definitely call _moving trees_wrong." the blonder of the two said.

"The tree moves?!" Aria gasps. She looks up at the branches of the tree, trying to find a trace of unnatural movement. But when no suspicious met her eye, she looked back down a gave Kazahaya a questioning look.

"Really?" Rikuou chuckled softly at Aria's disbelief in Kazahaya. When questioned Kazahaya got defensive and spluttered about making odd excuses and swearing that he was telling the truth.

"Oh come on Aria, you saw people fall out of thin air, moving trees isn't that big of a stretch." Fai said. It was the first time the blonde had spokes to someone besides Kurogane since they had gotten there. He and Kurogane were finally separated and standing up in a respectable manner.

Rikuou and Kazahaya exchanged glances when Fai mentioned falling out of the sky, but they chose to keep quiet. Kurogane didn't. He opened his mouth to take charge of the situation, but before he could get more than two syllables out, Kazahaya jumped in front of him and interrupted, "Wait! We still don't even know all of you guys' names yet!"

"Kaza, is that really so important?"

"My name's Aria, and the crazy blonde is Fai and these two are Syaoran and Kyle." Aria said pointing to each respective person. Fai gave a slight gasp of disapproval at being called crazy, but was soon occupied by the more pressing matter that Kurogane had posed by laughing at the statement. But the ninja simply brushed of the smaller man's words and got back to taking command.

"So we know why you're here, but what the hell are you actually supposed to be doing?" he asked the two older boys

"Well, I dunno. Kakei just sent us up here and didn't really tell us what to do, but something usually comes up. Kakei almost never makes us do things that are pointless." Rikuou said.

"Yea, even though he sometimes doesn't tell us what we are supposed to do, it's usually only when he knows we can figure it out on our own. He's not the type to tell you any more than you really need to know." Kazahaya added

"So you two don't really have a goal?"

"..." Kazahaya was silent.

"Not at the moment." Rikuou said reluctantly

"Good, so now you can help us." Kurogane said. "You know that the magical feather thing is making the tree all weird, and I don't know if I told you that we need it back, but we do. So perhaps you two could do something useful."

"But what if we are supposed to do something else?" Kazahaya questioned

"Your boss said something would turn up? Well we turned up, so do you have an ideas on how to help us?" Kurogane silenced all argument. The other four behind Kurogane had just stood in silence. If they had ever wanted to add anything to the conversation, there had just been no chance. Kurogane's marines commander talk had just barreled right over anything that anyone else had wanted to say. Fai had even soundlessly opened his mouth a few times, but had to shut it in defeat each attempt. The blonde looked very dejected at his lack of participation in this discussion.

"Well how can I help?" Kazahaya asked, and in the brief pause when Kurogane was thinking Syaoran spoke, "Hey Kurogane, what about us? Anything that we would do? Can we help?"

"Oh. Yea. Mokona, how do we get back in there?" Kurogane inquired

"I dunno, try making it mad." the puff ball offered. Kurogane wasn't satisfied with his answer, "Can't you magic us in there? Fai, can you?"

"I know nothing about that tree Kuro-kuro. Don't ask me to do magic again." he said in a deceivingly soft voice.

Kazahaya scooted over to Aria. He bent down and whispered to her, "He's magical!?" when she turned to him, she saw his eyes wide in anticipation, he really did look like a cat sometimes.

"Aren't we all magic sometimes?" Aria said, rather please with her enigmatic answer.

"What?" He whispered harshly.

"Just deal with it Kaza. You're gonna see weird things today." and she left it at that. The teen jumped over to Kyle leaving Kazahaya to wander back to Rikuou in rejection.

"Come one Mokona try!" Fai was saying. The younger members of the group rejoined the other conversation and saw Mokona start to glow and then her eyes open wide. She flew up the trunk slowly, until she stopped halfway up and then flew into the trunk. But she didn't go through the bark or anything, she just bounced right off. She tried again, and again, but nothing happened. The manjuu kept running into the tree and Fai finally had to yell at her to get her down.

Once the creature was safely in Fai's arms she sighed sadly. She felt she had failed, and after complaining about this and then being comforted by Fai, she regained some of her energy and gave a recap of what had happened

"The feather was strongest where I flew up to. It was almost as if the feather was right there, but it also felt weird. It wasn't quiet..." She moved her little arms around oddly.

"It wasn't quite-" Kyle said doubtfully, mimicking the odd hand motion.

"It just didn't feel _there_" she said loudly, "like I could feel the energy but it wasn't really real, like maybe it was in another type of dimension thingy."

"Well that actually makes sense." Rikuou said, "We were in this weird maze that seemed to be inside the tree, but it obviously wasn't. So maybe this feather thing like created another dimensions inside of itself just to confuse the shit out of us."

"That's actually a really good theory." Fai said. "Is there anything else you guys might know, any small insight is helpful."

"Kaza might be able to." Rikuou said

"No Rikuou!" the smaller teen said desperately. "It doesn't work well, I've only been able to do it once or twice!" their voices had switched to tense whispers as if it might make a difference, they could still be heard just fine.

"So, Kaza? You've gotta try." Rikuou persisted.

"No! It won't work!"

"Yes!"

The others watched this exchange is curiosity. What was going on? He two were arguing in rapid whispers about this unknown ability that Kazahaya had. At last, Rikuou seemed to have won the argument and Kazahaya was pushed towards the large tree by the larger teen.

Kazahaya walked the last few steps looking back at Rikuou pleading to get out of whatever sad fate he had been sentenced to. The boy took a deep breath and turned towards the tree, he slowly stuck out a hand and put it flat on the tree.

Nothing happened for a long moment and all six of the bystanders watched in close observation. Even Kyle was eagerly watching their attempt to find the feather. He watched intently as Kazahaya suddenly shuddered and faltered a bit.

The youth stayed were he was then suddenly collapsed onto his knees; but his hand stayed where it was. This was apparently not Kazahaya's doing because he instantly stood back up wide eyed, causing Rikuou to came over to him asking what had happened.

"I felt it, I felt the trees feelings. It was so angry at everyone for hurting the earth, all it wants is for the earth to be health again!" Kazahaya said in one big breath. He took a deep breath and continued in the same nervous voice, "It desperately wants to protect the feather, it's one chance to do something besides sit here and photosynthesize. It has used any means it can to protect it. It moved the feather out of this dimension and into a small one just for the feather." Kazahaya talked rapidly, using the hand not on the tree to make wild gestures to go along with his story. The look on the boys face was one of wonder, disbelief. He was in shock at this new knowledge that he had received empathically. It was so much more detailed and vivid than anything he'd ever been able to perceive before.

"But the problem is, my hand is stuck." he ended his story.

"You're kidding!" said Rikuou exasperatedly. He walked over to Kazahaya and pulled on his arm that was supposedly stuck. It didn't move and the force used caused Kazahaya to yelp in pain.

"My hand won't move!" he yelled at Rikuou staring the obvious. The others had now crowded around the youth, unsure how to react to this, when the youth began to be pulled into the tree.

Kazahaya started screaming, the tree was eating him! Rikuou and Kurogane tried to slow his movement, but slowly the boy was pulled further and further into the tree.

_End note:_

_So YAAAY I have ten chapters and it's almost 50 pages in word 8D this is the longest thing I've ever written and I think im actually gonna finish it! So for those of you who don't read Legal Drug, sorry some stuff is kinda confusing I guess. Well Kaza is an empath and he can like feel things emotions by touching them and he's I was touching on that._

_So the next chapter might not be up for a while. Cuz I kinda have no idea how I'm going to make that work...but I promise it will live! So thats all. And sorry if there's some discontinuity in this chapter, I'm too lazy to bother to remember what I wrote earlier._


	11. the Feather chapter

**Authors note **

ZOMG IT'S AN UPDATE AREN'T YOU PROUD!? Gosh so what has it been, a month? More? I'm such a horrible lazy person and I just never got around to writing and then my school with its stupid trimesters decided that OH HEY FINALS and I had stuff to do and I'm not motivated until I actually have something to do so then I wrote, and now I'm on vacation and recovering from stupid finals and I WROTE! So happy.

Here it is, The Feather Chapter. You knew it was coming an here it is and so I'm really happy cuz I'm actually gonna finish this and it will be the first story I've ever finished! And this chapter got me to over 30,000 words with ANs and that's like 54 pages in word and I'm so happy this is the longest thing I've ever written and I'm just haaaaaaappy.

I've realized that I have made Aria a bit of a cry baby, so sorry for annoying OC-ness but whatever. And hopefully I'll have another chapter up before the end of the week. Remember back when this thing first started and I have like three chs in a week? That was the life. So well ENJOY

And please, as always, REVIEWS ARE SO NICE AND WARM FUZZY MAKING

*goes to post ch. and sees 800 views* O.O O.o OMG THATS ALOT! Thanks sooooo much ily!

~3

and FYI I really just don't know what was up with a lot of this chapter so dont judge

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Kazahaya was screaming incoherently until Rikuou slapped him across the face causing him to whimper incoherently.

The teen was wide eyed in fear as he got pulled more and more into the tree. His arm was already almost inside the tree.

"Wait! Grab onto Kaza. If we can stay connected maybe the tree will pull us all in!" Aria suggested and the rest of the group, all of whom had been watching, frozen. Slowly they began to move in to form a chain.

But before anyone else could get a hold of the boy, Rikuou grabbed Kazahaya's arm and looked the brunette in the eyes and said something only audible to the two of them. After Rikuou, Aria grabbed the tall teens wrist and then Kyle fallowed suit, taking hold of her hand. Syaoran took Kyle's arm because the others refuse to, and Kurogane and Fai brought up the rear holding hands much to Kurogane's displeasure.

A shrill yell rang out as Kazahaya's face went through the tree, leaving just one half of his body desperately clinging to Rikuou. The others watched Rikuou shiver as his fingers went though the surface.

"What does it feel like?" Syaoran asked timidly while tying to adjust around Mokona who had stuffed herself into his shirt.

"Well Kazahaya is pulling on my hand, but besides that it just feels really humid, like it's misting, but it's warm. And the tree part feels kinda like jello." Rikuou appeared to try and move his arm around in the tree.

"Oh, that's Kaza's-" he dropped of and turned red as he was enveloped all the way up to his elbow.

The last four slowly were pulled into the tree until at last, Fai waved goodbye to the outside world and a confused looking squirrel and joined his companions inside the tree.

When Fai's eyes adjust to the light and he could perceive more than just Kurogane trying to free his hand from the mage's surprisingly vice-like grasp, he saw Kazahaya and Rikuou arguing as usually and Aria clinging oddly to Kyle. He stood there and observed the people until he was flipped over onto his back by Kurogane who was trying to free his hand.

"Ow" Fai said. He looked up at Kurogane who was looking down at him, quite red in the face. "Was that really necessary?" the mage asked indignantly. Kurogane opened his mouth to say something, however he gave up and silently helped the blonde up, careful to make sure his hand wasn't captured again.

They were in a large oval space. The walls were of the same material the maze had been made of, extremely smooth wood that felt like silk under Aria's curious fingers; but also slightly warm to the touch. The surface let off a soft green glow that bathed the room in a dull green. The floor seemed to be normal dirt, lose and soft in Fai's fingers. The magician picked up a small handful of the dirt and shifted it around in his hand, getting ready to throw it at Kurogane. The blonde's eyes twinkled as he prepped for the throw but right before he could toss it, Kazahaya let out a high pitched yell causing the magician to drop the dirt quickly back onto the ground.

Fai whipped his head around to see Kazahaya hiding behind Rikuou and pointing terrified at the tangles of green-brown vine that were slowly taking a more and more human shape in front of him.

Fai and Kurogane ran over to Aria and Kyle who were standing behind Syaoran and watched as the masses turned into humanoids with swords of black metal.

The soldiers were over six feet tall and oddly thin. Their legs and arms unnaturally long and their heads were only ovals with indentations where the mouth and eyes would be. Their longs arms twisted as if there were no bones inside, and their long fingered hands melded seamlessly with their swords as they raised the weapons and moved to strike.

They moved quickly. So quickly that Kurogane barely had time to demand his and Syaoran's swords from Mokona. As they began to fight and as Fai, Kyle, Kazahaya, and Rikuou got their bearings, Aria and Mokona found themselves being yelled at quite forcefully by the rest of them.

"Mokona! Fly Aria up away from this!" yelled Kurogane as he fought. Aria simply stood in shock as this all happened. Kurogane and Syaoran with swords, Fai immersed in a glowing ring of magic, the rest holding their own with testosterone fueled determination and martial arts. And in the midst of it all, Kyle running towards her with several of the tree-men at his heels, something even more than fire in his eyes. Running towards her and before she comprehends it Kyle's arms are around her and as quickly as they appeared, the arms throw her up into the air with inhuman strength.

She flew up into the air and heard a inhuman scream erupt from her own lips as she settled into Mokona's bubble of now-you-can-float-so-ha. For several moment she simply was. Not caring, not thinking, just being. Until the sounds of the continuing battle reached her ears snapping her back into it all.

"KYLE!" Aria screamed as she desperately looked down to find him. Her eyes tore apart the scene until he was located, fighting two-on-one with the tree-men. He was doing alright, and so were the others, but for ever one they defeated, another one was formed. It seemed never-ending.

She felt the tracks of warm water on her cheeks and realized she was sobbing. She was crying. For what? The shock of it all? Worry? A normal girl suddenly thrown into this situation. She wasn't handling it well. The sounds of her thoughts, and worries, and deep hidden fears filled her ears and the violence and intensity of the fight below also filled her head. Causing a massive build up of stress. She began to hyperventilate, her breaths more rapid with each in and out. He roar in her ears made her deaf to Mokona's worried words and her eyes began to glaze over.

Then she saw Fai's eyes from inside his magic glow. Just for a moment, the magician's eyes met her own and she saw his confidence and love and just his him. And Aria was back.

She sat down slowly, getting back into her comfort zone- well as much as she could. The adrenaline and terror was still there, but only as a dark shadow, she had control of her head again.

"Mokona?" Aria said tentatively. When Mokona chirped a reply, Aria continued unsteadily.

"Why am I here? With you, instead of them?" her voice rose slightly, "Why can't I help!?" Mokona sighed. The girl was so distraught, her young face distorted in sadness so raw it hurt the little creature.

"Because you can't fight. They want to protect you." Aria stared at Mokona, her eyes large and wondering. She moved as to look down, but stopped herself.

"I shouldn't be here." The girl's voice was little more than a whisper, "Im just normal. Everyone else-even Kyle-is special. You are all more than human, and I'm just a girl. I am basic, plain, normal. Just so normal! Just like every other stupid, fucking teenager. Nothing special. Why did I get picked to do this, there's no way I can handle this, none." she seemed to be talking to herself. She wasn't looking at Mokona, just staring at her own slightly shaking hands and talking in little more than a ghost of a voice. "How did I get into this?" she was silent for a long moment. "I should help. Just look at them, those tree-monsters are just going to keep coming, and they can't fight forever. What are they even protecting anyway?!" she finally turned to Mokona, a new light in her eyes. "I am going to help." and when she said it, there wasn't any doubt in her voice. No room for interpretation, she was going to help, no matter what.

"What are they actually protecting?" she asked. "It's no like this room goes any where, it's just one room. No corridors or doors. Hey Mokona, can you like go to the other side of the room?"

"Ummm, okay!" And they started moving. Moving slowly in their odd bubble of floating-ness.

They made slow progress, the room-thing seemed to go on for an awfully long time, and they were always wary for the appearance of the tree-men. But before too long, the forms of their companions shrunk down, and angles of vision changed, and the other wall approached.

As they reached the far wall, Aria stretched her arm out in innocent curiosity and brushed her fingertips along the soft surface of the wall several times. She savored the unnatural softness, the wonderful sensation bringing a youthful grin to her face that was twisted into a much older fear as vicious vines snapped out of the wall and wound around her arm, but before they had proper hold, Mokona pulled her away leaving the vines groping blindly for the intruder. The vines shot out towards them, driving them back farther from the wall, until Mokona was able to navigate in closer and suddenly as they swooped in, vines from above their heads plunged down and grabbed Aria, this time before Mokona could rescue her. She was pulled back, kicking and screaming, into the green light of the ceiling. There was nothing Mokona could do but watch, she couldn't move closer because of the vines still chasing her, or risk getting pulled up herself. So the pork-bun watched the teenager fade into the light with eyes calling out in pain as much as her voice was. As the last trace of Aria's form vanished, Mokona heard several shouts from below her.

Mokona turned around and look back at the others. The others were walking around looking for the tree-men who hand vanished with out a trace.

Kyle sat down with a thump. He had never done that much fighting before, and quite frankly all he wanted to do now was sleep. Sleep for a very long time. The teen strained his head awkwardly to look up at the exact portion if the celling where Aria had vanished into. Not that he'd seen Aria disappear or anything, he just looked there, oddly drawn to that spot as if he'd just barely missed something important, but had no idea what. And then he laid his head back down and gratefully closed his eyes.

Mokona was flying down from where Aria had been taken, when she saw Kyle's black-haired head look at the ceiling directly behind her. Right where Aria had gone into. How did he know that Aria had gone there?

He wasn't going to get back up, not now not ever. No matter how much anyone yelled at him. He was done with this. Kyle hardened his resolve to never get off this floor as the arguing voices if the others faded out of his attention. The ground was surprisingly comfortable, but then again anything would probably be comfortable after fighting inhuman things like that.

If Kyle had bothered to listen to the conversation of the others, he might have avoided a foot to the side from Kurogane that probably broke a rib.

"WHAT WAS THAT FOR?!" Kyle yelled as he rolled over on to his stomach in protest, wincing at the pain in his ribs. "I think you broke a rib, bastard." Kyle groaned.

"Well don't you care about Aria?!" Kurogane yelled back at the teen.

He sat up lighting fast, the pain in his ribs no longer present. He looked at the rest of the group standing around him, all glaring at with varying levels of intensity.

"What about Aria?" Kyle asked urgently. His heart beat faster and his breathing escalated as the others shifted uncomfortably before Fai said, "She got taken by the tree. She's not here with us anymore." Fai said gesturing around.

His eyes widened, and his faced paled. His head dropped into his hands and he curled up, knees to his chin. It was odd to see the teen like this. He was always collected and in control of himself and everyone else. Sitting curled up like that, he seemed much younger than sixteen, and far less threatening.

After a long moment of silence, Kazahaya bent down and patted the boy on his head, even though Kazahaya was only a few years older than him, he felt like he could be the teen's senior by much more. Kyle lifted his head and peered out from under his bangs and Kazahaya saw his large, dark brown eyes, so dark they could be almost be black. His eyes that were usually cold and calculating, turned scared and child-like, and brushed with the soft sheen of unshed tears.

The expression almost made Kazahaya laugh from the contradiction of it all, but he only smiled.

"Aria will be fine, idiot. You gotta stay strong for your girlfriend, okay?" Kyle's eyes hardened again, but the watery quality they had didn't go away. His features pulled out a disturbed smirk.

"Aria's not my girlfriend." He said evenly.

Kazahaya sat down and rubbed the back if his head nervously.

"Well that shows how little I actually know you." He said with an embarrassed laugh.

Kyle stood up and then offered his hand to help Kazahaya up. The brunette took the offer and stood up with Kyle's help and then patted him on the back and the two shared a smile.

If one white Mokona's observations can be trusted, Rikuou's face twisted into a larger than usual, and dare I say, somewhat jealous scowl as the two teens had their moment. At the sight of this Mokona tittered to herself. Oh look at the little Mokona being so observant, Yuuko would be proud, my dear.

Even Syaoran and Kurogane were having trouble hating Kyle as he turned to the group, with a kind determination in his eyes and began to propose a plan.

"Well this sucks." Aria said as she sat fuming on the floor of an identical space as the one she had just left, only this one was smaller. Considerably small.

Aria let out a stream of profanity that would have made Kurogane blush and her parents very angry. She didn't do we'll in small places and she was trying to ignore the obnoxious itch at the back of her neck that wouldn't go away. And she felt a headache coming on.

She didn't have many options. She could sit there until something happened. But she had a feeling she might be sitting for a long time. She could get up and explore the small space that she had been stuffed into. It was tall enough that she could stand without trouble, but it was only about ten feet across and it was square. The problem with that was that she didn't want those tree-men to come out again, she definitely couldn't last against those things. Maybe she could try and get captured by the ceiling again, she might get back to where she had been before and hopefully find Kyle and the others.

"I hope that they're okay." She said and drew her knees up to her chin and sat there sadly. She sat there, not knowing that in the room she just left, Kyle was sitting in the exact same position. But Kyle had Kazahaya to help him up. Aria had to be her own help.

She slowly and unsteadily got up, her headache growing with each move she made. She almost sat back down, but a small, metallic glint caught her eye.

She shakily moved over to the wall where she had seen the glint. The odd monotony of the surface was broken by a single silver dot. She gently brushed her finger over the circle and when she did, it burst into light and the silver was glowing, and growing. Sliver filigree was blooming all over the wall from that one spot. Twisting and winding in an infinitely intricate pattern, but as the lines and swirls grow, a familiar shape began to appear. It was the odd heart pattern that was found on all of Sakura's feathers.

Aria took a step back and took a sharp intake of breath as she realized this. From her new standpoint in the center of the room, she could see the silver lines, always led by that impossibly bright glow, wind their way completely around the room until all four walls were cover in silver designs akin to extremely detailed embroidery or metal work. And directly in front of Aria, was the pattern of Sakura's feathers. The room suddenly felt much larger as the last hidden corners were covered and the glowing lights went out, returning the room to its original soft green light, rather than the blinding silver shine that had been filling the space for the last few moments. She ran the few paces up to the wall again and ran her hands over the design in front of her in wonderment. She traced the individual lines making up the larger ones, followed strands around the entire room and placed her palms flat on the wall in curiosity.

She stood their for a moment. Hands flat on the design eyes staring around her at the beautiful silver lines. It was as if she was in the most detailed and fragile birdcage ever. As if the space had trapped itself in the web of dazzling silver metalwork. But Aria didn't feel trapped. She was enraptured with the web of lines around her. The beautiful spirals and shapes. She followed them around the room with her eyes. The silver was so beautiful it was almost hypnotizing.

She slid down to floor, back up against the wall and simply stared around her in wonder.

"I wish I could stay here forever." She hasn't meant to say that, but as soon as she realized it was true. She wanted nothing more than to stay in this room of beautiful silver and green forever. She smiled to herself at the wonderful feeling of finally knowing what she wanted. All her life she had been full of confusion and mixed feelings, but know, know she knew she would be safe and happy and content for the rest of time in her silver home.

Aria had never been one for singing, but now in this safe haven she had found, anything felt possible. And she moved to her feet and started to sing, a sad, drifting melody that managed still to hold a tune of hope in it's sorrowful lines.

If the world was to stop, I could still go on. Living in my head, my heart. In peace

She swayed as she sang, arms wrapped around herself. The room tiring even Aria's untrained voice into a thing of beauty.

Nothing but the life within my self. I never need to leave for I have found all. You took my heart and left nothin else. I surrender myself to you.

Still in the cavernous room below, the others looked around as the strange song filled the room. They couldn't make out words, but the melody was clear. Quietly winding through the space causing the others to stop in their tracks and listen. It was haunting and lovely at the same time. It felt soothing and yet, they all felt the hair on the back of their necks rise. And then it ended, and the single tear Kurogane saw fall down Mokona's cheek was mirrored on each of their faces.

Aria kept singing for quite awhile, the words to a song she had never heard before drifting off her tongue and out of her mouth and into the room and around and around in the small space.

For I am no longer me, I am only of you

And the singing stopped and the misplaced admiration stopped. It all just stopped and Aria was her own again and the room was no longer beautiful and suddenly felt claustrophobic again. She spun around trying to make sense of what had happened and as she laid eyes on the feather's pattern again she felt her mind threaten to go back into blind clam again and she closed her eyes.

She had been controlled by the room! The silver patterns had hypnotized her and she had fallen under a spell of false security and would have probably stayed their forever and died of thirst and starvation still believing she would be safe forever if those words had t somehow jogged her memory and brought her back. She didn't like knowing that something had invaded her mind and taken over. And to make it worse, she remembered it all in perfect detail, she remembered that feeling of safety and happiness so strong that she had believed she could stay like that forever. She had a sinking feeling that the unreasonable happiness that had just invaded her head must be similar to drugs.

But right now she had other problems, like that fact that there was no more floor, no more silver room, and she was falling and falling like Alice down the rabbit hole. 'Cause you know, that's kinda a major problem.

She was falling head first, feet first, sideways, right side up, upside down. Spinning down, spinning up. Over and over. And the walls, the walls of incandescent green and yellow light fell with her. The shimmering walls never seemed to stay in place around her, the were circular, then square, then close to her and then far away. And then the pain came.

It pounded her head until it suddenly gave way to a flood of emotions. Emotions that weren't hers, but were the trees. She felt the same things Kyle had and she felt them in the falling abyss of the tree.

She felt the anger at all the humans if taking up its home, the bitterness at being shoved away from what it rightfully owned. The sadness as the tree watch it's brothers and sisters die. All at the hands of the humans. The horrible fear that one day this tree might be felled for another home, or for more fuel. Then there was the disgust. The pure total disgust as the tree watched the land it loved become polluted and no longer beautiful. And how sad it was not to be able to do anything. Nothing at all.

Al this washed over Aria in a second, all the emotions flashed through her mind and heart, as raw as is they were her own. She felt these things and she understood why the tree was so desperate to have this feather. This one chance to make a difference. But she also felt sorry. So, so sorry for this tree that had to endure all the pain of a home killed and being able to do anything about it. She had felt the trees pain, she could understand the trees pain. But the tree didn't have to go about hurting things.

It didn't have to keep tearing up the ground with earthquakes to make the humans suffer. What else might the tree do if given the chance, Aria might see her town destroyed by the wrath of the tree.

She couldn't tell the tree to stop, that what it was doing was wrong, it was probably what people deserved for being so cruel to the land that supported them. She couldn't tell the tree that it was pointless, she couldn't do anything to persuade this entity of raw emotion and power that what it was doing was wrong. Nor could she promise that she would make a difference, for that would be a lie.

But what Aria could do was feel this immense wave of kindness and understanding wash over her heart. This kind love so strong that the tree felt it. The tree felt Aria's sudden and almost misplaced love. The love so pure that it only come from a child. And even though Aria was a bit older than a child, her heart wasn't.

And Aria opened her eyes to the warm inside of the tree. She wasn't falling anymore, and right in front of her was one of Sakura's feathers. It was there within a glowing sphere, and Aria reached out for it and took the feather in her arms, pulling it close to her chest and wrapping herself around it protectively. And as Aria cradled the feather in her arms, somewhere below and slightly to the left of Aria, it that original oval shaped room with the glowing ceiling, Fai, Kurogane, Syaoran, Kyle, and Mokona all felt an immense surge of true love before they blacked out and when they opened their eyes, they were outside of the tree and Aria was standing before them, the feather in her arms and tears streaming down her face.


	12. Chapter 12

**Author's** note

**PLEASE READ I SAY IMPORTANT STUFFS**

OMG look at me updating soo fast! It's like the good old days. Well I guess that comes from not having school. Oh well.

IT'S THE SECOND TO LAST CHAPPIE! 8D 8D 8D IM SO HAPPY! But I'm also a little sad... Oh hey, sorry Aria kinda turned into a cry baby, that wasn't meant to happen-I think.

Well here's the bad news for anyone who's bothered to read this far. I am two reviews away from 30 and I have decided not to put up the last chapter until I get those two reviews! Ahhhhhhhh I'm so mean and selfish I SOWWY. And I have the last chapter (almost) all written up so its not like you guys will be waiting forever anyway. But I really want reviews. And I just want to know what you think of this story and thank you very much to anyone who has stayed with me the whole way. Seriously I mean this had been hard- for both of us.

So yea. I love you( even if you hate me *hides*) but seriously review.

Nooooow I need to practice for the winter percussion auditions on Tuesday that I'm gonna fail.

~3

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They had the feather. They had the feather! Aria was holding an extremely powerful, magical feather in her hands. She looked down at the object in her arms, the white, overlarge feather was slightly warm and it almost felt like it was alive softly pulsing in her grasp.

She traced the red design on the feather with her finger, remembering the same design in silver that had trapped her not too long ago. She had gone through so much this last hour, seen things no teenager-no normalteenager-would ever see. She'd seen magic, a tree become a thinking being, that same tree create warriors of wood and leaves, been hypnotized by a silver pattern, and fallen trough the tree. It slowly sank through Aria's head all that had actually happened in this short period of time and she felt her brain start to haze over at the enormity of it all.

She looked up and saw the others standing in front of her and she let out a soft laugh. And with her eyes wide and face pale, she looked slightly crazed.

"She's probably going into shock. We should get her home." Kyle said and walked over to Aria putting his arm around her and began to guide her along.

"Wait." Kurogane grabbed his arm, stopping his movement. "If you touch the feather, or do anything to suggest you might be trying to take it for yourself, I won't hesitate to break your neck."

"Wow Kurgs, violent much?" Fai asked pulling the raven away from the teen. Kurogane looked down at Kyle, who was staring back at him defiantly and let out a sigh. "Your right, I wouldn't kill him."

"Him is right here!" Kyle hissed. The deal haired teen quickly turned away and pulled Aria towards the park again.

They walked back to the park in relative silence. Aria and Kyle leading the way, with Kurogane, Fai, and Syaoran walking a bit behind them, and Kazahya and Rikuou brought up the rear, somewhat unsure if they were welcomed, but coming anyway.

"Kyle?" Aria asked quietly.

"Mhm" Kyle responded gently.

"Why are you so clam all the time?" Aria's question surprised the raven, and he was glad when Aria continued.

"I mean, you just fought off an army of tree monsters, and learned that magic is real, and...and that you're Dr. Kyle from Tsubasa." Kyle sighed, he had been hoping she wouldn't mention that.

"I'm still Kyle. Same old Kyle, nothing's changed. I guess I just have a high tolerance of the abnormal. And you handled it fine Aria, you went through things no normal person goes through and you're doing...okay."

"But you're acting like nothing happened! Like its no big deal!" Her voice rose, but she still didn't turn to Kyle as she spoke. "And look at me, I'm a wreck. And I'm so tired,so tired." Aria stopped walking

"Do you need me to carry you?" Kyle asked kindly. Ari nodded and situated herself so Kyle could pick her up in a piggy-back-ride.

"Maybe it's because I am ." The dark-haired teen said softly.

And they walked on to Aria's house like that. No matter how many weird looks they got, they kept walking. Kyle led them through the residential area to where Aria lived. He unlocked the door using the hidden spare key and after placing it back in its hiding spot inside the hat of an innocent garden gnome by the door, he led them inside and softly placed Aria down on the couch. She had fallen asleep on the way back home and she whimpered softly in her sleep when Kyle put her down. Kyle suspected a gentle "shh" and brushed her hair out of her eyes

"You know, it's getting harder and to hate the bastard." Kurogane said quietly to Fai as they watched the scene from a little ways away. Fai chuckled, "Mhmm, especially when he looks at Aria-chan like that." He looked at Kurogane, "It's almost the same way Kuro-sama looks at me sometimes." He said laying a hand on the taller man's arm. For once Kurogane didn't push the arm away, but let it wait out its stay until Fai removed it himself.

"Uumm..." A nervous Kazahya poked Kurogane in the shoulder. "Are we supposed to be here. Wait! Rikuou don't eat that!" He yelled at the taller teen who had picked up an apple and had been about to eat it before he got yelled at.

Once Rikuou had put down the apple, Kazahaya turned back to Fai and Kurogane.

"Sorry." The youth sighed.

"It's okay." Fai pipped up, "And I'm sure you can stay here, I mean you helped us get the feather."

"Yea, well we kinda have to leave, and we need the feather, Kakei probably wants it." Rikuou said from behind Kazahya, eating an apple.

"No." Syaoran moved up from where he had been sitting with Mokona, "That is Sakura's feather and she is getting it back." He said with cold determination.

"It really should go back to Sakura-hime" Kyle spoke up from by the couch, only to be yelled at by Kurogane for speaking.

"Well can't we at least show the feather to Kakei. And Saiga too. He'll never let us live it down if we don't complete a job!" Kazahya whined. The others looked to Syaoran for the answer, and after a moment he nodded stiffly.

"We all won't fit in my car." They all turned to see Aria had awoken and was sitting up on the couch.

"Aria-chan!" Fai squealed and ran over to the teen and hugged her. Aria laughed and then turned serious.

"My car only fits five and there's-" she pauses to count "And there's seven of us." She looked around to see if anyone would volunteer to stay behind.

"We'll stay." Fai said. And Aria nodded, understanding that Fai and Kurogane would be staying

"Who's we?" Kurogane grumbled with a sinking feeling that he knew it was himself who would be staying behind.

"You of course!" Fai said poking the raven's cheek for good measure.

"Fine." Kurogane sighed.

Before they could leave, they had to pry the feather away from Aria, who hadn't let go of the object since they had obtained it. Aria wasn't sure why she felt so protective of the feather, but it took a sizable amount of persuasion to get her to relinquish it to Mokona, who then stored it in her mouth. But right before they were about to leave, Fai yelled for Aria and ran from the kitchen holding Aria's camera.

"I wanna get a picture with us in it!" He cried, and then proceeded to here's everyone back inside and lined them all up. He got Aria to set the timer on the camera so they could all be in the picture. Aria set the timer and ran back to the group, Fai pulled her in close and she looked up at the man, he smiled down at her, and then the camera flashed.

"Oh I forgot to look at the camera!" Aria lamented. But Kyle pulled her to the door telling her they had to go.

They once again got into Aria's car, with Kyle diving this time around, Aria in the passenger seat, and the other three stuffed in the back.

Once downtown, Aria instructed Kyle to park in front of Kazahaya and Rikuou's store. They got out and Kazahaya led them into the store using his key, because it was closed.

"Kakei!" Kazahaya called once they were inside. A muffled response sounded from the back room. They walked through the quiet store and Kazahaya led them into the back room.

Aria had been expecting to see Kakei and Saiga fromLegal Drug she had attempted to prepare herself for this, but that didn't stop her from sharing a minor spazz with Kyle at the back of the group when she saw them.

Sitting on a couch was a man. It was difficult to tell how old he was, he looked no more than thirty, but he could just as easily be over forty. And his eyes. His eyes had such a depth to them. His brown eyes looked out from behind his glasses with the knowledge and wisdom of an old man. His hair was several shades lighter than his eyes and it fell unevenly around his face, framing his knowing eyes, and giving him a rather feminine beauty.

There was another figure on the couch.

Laying on the couch, with his head in the first man's lap, was a much larger man. He had short dark hair, and was wearing very dark sunglasses, even though it was dim in the room.

The larger man got up slowly and placed his arm protectively around the other man.

"Why Kazahaya, you brought friends." The smaller of the two men said. He had a voice fitting to appearance, somewhat high and soft and lyrical.

"I didn't know he had any." The other said. "Well, besides Rikuou. And we"", he's different..."

"Kakei, Saiga." Kazahaya said straining to stay calm. "We went to where you said and found that something was most definitely wrong. And the reason it was so wrong, was because of a magic feather.

"Maybe we should buy a chicken." Rikuou said softly. When Kazahaya turned to him exasperated, he elaborated, "You know, with feathers being so powerful, and-nevermind."

"And can you introduce yourselves?!" Kazahaya asked, still annoyed.

"My, he's bossy." The smaller man said smiling wickedly at Kazahaya's anger, before continuing. "I'm Kakei, and this is Saiga" he said and Saiga leaned down to kiss Kakei's head when he was mentioned, and Aria was struck with how much larger Saiga was. The man looked like he could almost be taller than Kurogane.

"Can we see this feather?" Kakei asked. Aria focused back on Kakei and pulled Mokona out of her backpack, ignoring the two's lack of response when Mokona summoned the feather from her mouth.

Syaoran took the feather and brought it over to the two, but he didn't let them touch it, and strangely enough, Kakei didn't move to take the feather either.

"I'm glad you got your friend's feather back" Kakei said with a smile.

"What!" Syaoran took a step back in surprise. "How do you know that this is my friend's feather?!" He asked.

"I get around." He said with a knowing smirk. Syaoran was reminded very strongly of Yuuko.

"But know, you have the larger problem of how to get it back to her." Kakei said, his kind exterior now dangerous and cold.

"Don't scare the kid." Saiga mumbled

Kazahaya couldn't take it anymore. "You sent us wandering off into the hills to find what was wrong. And then we find the stupid tree and almost DIE! And now it seems like it all had no purpose at all! We're just gonna give the kid his feather back and be on our way." He yelled.

"You know I had my reasons." Kakei said, but he was still looking a Syaoran. He then turned and glared at Kazahaya with the same dangerous aura. "I always have my reasons." And then he turned happy again, "Rikuou, you and Kazahaya can go upstairs now." Rikuou nodded and herded Kazahaya upstairs.

Kakei turned once again to Syaoran.

"Well, it was lovely meeting you, but I don't believe I caught your name."

"Sya-Syaoran" the brunette stuttered, still a little frazzled.

"Hmm, interesting name." Kakei mused. "Again nice meeting you, but if you could, I believe you can show yourselves out now."

Syaoran and the others hurried out of the room, all to glad to be out of the tense atmosphere Kakei had created. Aria hung back just outside the door.

"You know, you don't have to be so harsh." She heard Saiga say. Kakei sighed in response and then murmured something aria couldn't catch, and then she was able to catch: "The girl that was with them, I've seen her around here before, I think her name's Aria, and I've heard she's a bit of an eavesdropper, so we might not want to say anything important." Aria gasped and quickly moved away from the door before she could hear anything else. She ran to catch up with Kyle and Syaoran.

Kyle let her drive this time, and as she did she wondered about Kakei and Saiga.

'Kakei is like the female Yuuko, it's kinda scary. And Saiga, he's just scary.' She shuddered slightly. 'But, they are an adorable couple.' She admitted to herself. She wondered how Kakei knew she was there, he couldn't have have seen her.

But they were already at Aria's house, And as Kakei had pointed out, they had important things to discuss.

They were all sitting on the couch getting ready to call for Wataunki. Aria had put her car in her room, so she wouldn't disrupt things again. She only hopped that Watanuki would be alright this time.

Mokona's projection began to light up and slowly Watanuki came into view. Watanuki was in the process of yelling at Doumeki. They couldn't make out what he was saying, but he was spazzing out just like always.

Doumeki turned his head to avoid Watanuki, but saw Mokona's projection and grabbed the smaller male's arm, turning towards the projection.

Watanuki moved over to the projection, chastising Doumeki as he did so.

"Hi!" He greeted them. Doumeki nodded his greetings.

"So I take it you found Sakura's feather?" The wizard asked.

Mokona chirpped yes and brought the feather out from her mouth, momentarily obscuring Watanuki. Aria gripped onto the feather, and showed it to the men on the other side of the projection.

"Good job, guys." Watanuki said kindly.

"Oh hey, Watanuki-san," Aria spoke up. "What was wrong with you last time we called?" She asked in concern

"That? Oh that." He sighed. "It's a long story. And it's Doumeki's fault anyway, so-just don't worry about it." He said glaring at Doumeki, who didn't argue that it had been his fault.

"See what I mean?!" Watanuki said exasperatedly to Aria. "He never talks!"

Aria laughed, glad to see Watanuki in a good mood. In the manga, after Yuuko died, he was always so depressed and solemn, and Aria had missed the energetic spazz he had been before he inherited the shop. Watanuki looked no more than seventeen, but she could see the age in his eyes, just as she had in Kakei's.

"So why did you call me specifically?" The shopkeeper asked.

"Well now that we have Sakura's feather, we need to get it back to her." Syaoran said.

"Ahh, yes." Watanuki said, no longer childish. "That's a bit of a problem isn't it? Well you have several options: you could just keep the feather with you as you travel, and wait until you end up in Clow again. Or you could cross dimensions now and give it to her."

Syaoran looked to Fai and Kurogane before speaking, "I'd like to five it to her now, but that requires a dimension cross to a specific place, and that'd be awfully hard for me to afford wouldn't it be?" The brunette asked nervously.

"That's quite right, in fact I doubt you'd be able to pay for it at all, at least alone." The shopkeeper and Syaoran kept trying to negotiate, but Watanuki was adamant that Syaoran couldn't do it.

As Aria sat there in silence, an idea started to take shape in her head.

"Hey Watanuki-san, what if I went to return the feather?" She said quietly.

"We'll there's an idea." Said the wizard in a way that seemed to imply he had known this would happen.

"No Aria you can't!" It was Kyle, looking over at his friend worriedly. "He'll make you give something ridiculous! Remember what they had to pay?"

"But think about the vampires and Seishirou, and Fuuma. They can travel dimensions too, and I only want to do it twice, once to Clow and once back." She said determinedly.

"Can she afford it?" Kyle asked in worry.

"Well, there is one thing I can think of that would be able to just about cover it." Watanuki paused for effect. "Her memories."

"My memories!?" Aria cried out, terrified of what Wataunki would make her forget.

"You would forget everything that has happened since Syaoran and the others appeared. You would go to Clow and come back and then once Mokona has taken the others away, you would forget everything that has happened." The wizard said

Aria's brain reeled. She would forget meeting Syaoran, Kurogane, and Fai? But she had only just met them and she treasured all of the memories she had made in that short time, even the ones when she was scared. Even when she had been lulled into a fake peace by the tree, even that she didn't want to forget. She wanted to remember all of it, she wanted to know all that she did. She knew how they acted in real life, how they interacted with each other. She didn't want it all to be a dream.

But Sakura needed her feather. And she couldn't pass up a chance to go to Clow, no matter what the cost.

She brushed the tears from her eyes, and gathered up her courage.

"I'll do it." She said strongly.

"But Aria!" She was met with protest from the group, but most of all Kyle.

"Why can't I give my memories?" Kyle protested. " Why can't I forget instead of Aria!?"

"That should be obvious, shouldn't it?" Watanuki said. "What give learned is far to important. You now know that you are the incarnation of someone terrible. You know that you have evil written in your soul. You need to take that knowledge and continue to do good." He sighed. "And anyways, your memories hold a different value than Aria's do. She cherishes hers, while you wish you had never had this experience." He explained.

"But won't I be a liability?" Kyle persisted. "What if I tell Aria what happened?"

"Even if you do that-which you won't-she will never remember it, and she either not believe you, or become sad because she can't remember anymore." Wataunki then focused on Aria again.

"But just your memories will not be enough to bring you to Clow and back." Watanuki told Aria. "I'll also need the magic in your eyes."

"I have magic!?" Aria yelled, for a second completely forgetting that Wataunki planned to take it away.

"Yes. It's not uncommon for eyes to hold magic, just like Fai's do. But yourself is different than his. It's less corporeal and is more self protecting and only comes out in small occurrences." He paused. "Will you still do it?"

"Wait, wait, wait!" Aria said. "How is it that I have magic, but I can't use it?"

Watanuki sighed, "It's normal for people to have some type of magic within them for small things. Like maybe you have extraordinary luck, or maybe you never get noticed when you don't want to be, and then there's magic that helps people. It helps the body be healthy, and the mind alert. It also has the power to heal to some degree." He paused. "Really Aria, it's just how it is, weather it makes sense or not."

Aria grumbled to herself about the unfairness of it all, and if it was going to be unfair, couldn't it at least make sense?"

"Well Aria?"

Aria's mind was made up this time. Even though she didnt think Watanuki had properly explained her hidden powers, she still wanted to do this.

"Yes"

No one opposed her this time, they just sat by in silence. Wataunki asked Fai to remove the Aria's magic for her. The lithe man walked over o Aria and knelt in front of her.

"This won't hurt." He promised. They others watched as Fai put his hand before Aria's eyes, and just as his own eye had done in Nihon, Aria's eye color now pulled away. The green light was pulled from Arai's eyes and solidified into a green gem.

Aria didn't feel any different, but she did look different. Her eyes were now, a rich golden brown, much different from their previous bright green.

As Fai transferred the gem through Mokona for Watanuki, Aria asked, "But won't people notice that my eyes are different?"

"No one will notice, that's the best part." Watanuki said as he held the dream gem up.

"It's beautiful isn't it?" He asked. "Now, are you ready to go?"

End Note

So how'd you like it? Can you believe this is almost over? Just one more chapter.

Were you surprised with what I made Aria pay?! I felt very evil writing that, but also sad, because I hate stories that end like that, but its so perfect! I hate writing angst, which is why I'll probably not be writing the kurofai fic I want to anytime soon -.-'

Well that's if for now! Please review, I love hearing what you have to say (and remember my selfish evilness)

And what's with the super long ANs this ch...


	13. Chapter 13

**Author's note**

Well this is it, the last chapter. I hope you like it. And many thanks and a cyber CAKE to the like 15 some odd people who have read this all the way through.

And I apologize for the shameless TouyaxYukito shipping in this ch.

I don't think I'm going to start anything anytime soon, I am nursing some teeny tiny plot bunnies to life and hopefully I'll have something up on Christmas, maybe even a mini drabble series. But maybe not.

And if anyone wants to give me some ideas...(?) review or PM (?)

So yea. Please review( fun fact: I can't spell review) the LAST CHAPTER

~3

* * *

First of all, Aria didn't look anything like Sakura, even when she had her green eyes. But let's back up a bit.

It was a very odd feeling, being transferred through dimensions. She was falling headfirst through the tunnel of spinning lights and wind Mokona had created. It was almost like she was falling through water, because she was falling, and there was a breeze pushing her through, but she felt like she was moving rather slowly. When the tunnel finally broke and she found herself on the outskirts of Clow, she nearly went into shock again, but when Mokona landed on her shoulder, she remembered her mission.

Mokona led Aria through the streets of Clow, and Aria took in every second of it with wide, observant eyes.

They were walking along a narrow street leading towards the place. And on either side of them there were either houses, or shops. But before that was the people.

There were so many of them, all dressed in their desert wear, and all smiling. Aria felt out of place in her jeans shorts and red tank top, and pale skin. But the people didn't make her feel like an outsider even though she obviously was.

The all smiled and waved at her as if she was an old friend. One woman even offered her one of the yellow apples of Clow for free. Aria took it graciously and ate the sweet fruit as she neared the castle.

The castle was imposing. It was large and it toward above Aria as if it was trying to remind her that she was only one small human. The perimeter of the structure was surrounded by guards, but apparently Mokona was well known here, because as soon as the guards saw the creature, they let Aria in.

Even though the outside of the palace was threatening, the interior was much nicer. It was cool inside, and the walls were decorated with drapes and all the servants appeared happy and content. One of the guards from outside was leading them along. Even though Mokona got them into the castle, an escort was still required to see princess Sakura.

They were led up several flights of stairs and Aria tried to memorize every detail, even thought she would forget it all afterwards.

They had arrived to a large, regal door. The guard knocked twice, and the door was opened by Yukito.

Aria gasped at yet another familiar face. The high priest stared uncomprehendingly at Aria for a moment before Mokona spoke up.

"Yukitooooo! This is Aria, she's a friend of Syaoran-kun!" The sliver-haired man breathed the name and quickly dismissed the guard and ushered them into the throne room.

Across the room from Aria, sat King Touya. He lounged in his throne arguing with the princess herself. Aria was brought over by Yukito, who had to cough to get the two's attention.

"Ah, Yuki! Talk som sense into Sakura, she usually...listens to...you. Yuki, who's this?"

"Mokona!" Sakura yelled and embraced the creature as she jumped off of Aria's shoulder. The princess twirled around with Mokona in her arms.

"It's been so long since I've seen you! How's Syaoran? And Fai-san and Kurogane-san too! Oh! Are they here!?" She asked in excitement. She turned to she Aria. "Yukito, who's this?" She said, echoing her brother's question, only Sakura's inquiry was much kinder, than her brother's.

"Well, I'm not entirely sure myself." Yukito answered awkwardly.

Touya turned his question to Aria, asking her quite forcefully who she was. Aria was a little scared under such scrutiny, but she forced herself to be brave when she answered.

"My name is Aria. In from a different dimension, and two days ago Syaoran, Fai and Kurogane appeared at my house." She said.

"Really?!" Sakura gasped and ran over too Aria, taking the other girl by the arms. Are they okay? Is Syaoran alright, does Fai-san remember to eat, how's Kurogane-san, what worlds have they been to?" The questions came out in a rush, and Aria found herself speechless as she stared at Sakura.

Aria was somewhat saddened to realize the really didn't look anything like Sakura. The princess's hair was shorter, and considerably lighter than her own. Sakura also had two longer strands of hair falling passed her shoulders. Also, Aria was short and well built, where as the princess was several inches taller than her and had a somewhat delicate look about her, she was so thin. But it worked, Aria had to admit, the princess was gorgeous. The was her hair fell in an almost-but not quite-messy way, and her slim frame moved gracefully. It was all topped off by the girl's large, sparkling green eyes that shone like emeralds, and were filled with happiness.

"Well-well that's not all." Aria managed to say. Sakura tilted her head like a puppy. Aria had to try not to laugh as she began to tell the story.

"There was one of your feathers in my world, right by my town actually." Aria said. Sakura gasped, and her brother and his advisor instantly paid more attention to the newcomer.

With all eyes on her, Aria began the story of how Sakura's feather had found its way into a tree and was then found. She told her of Kyle, Kurogane's disappearance, and of the tree-men. She told the story in detail, for Sakura wanted to hear every bit of the story. And the girl would nod and and listen raptly. She gasped when aria told her about the room of silver.

"Oh Aria-san I'm so sorry!" She exclaimed, grabbed the shorter girl's hands before her brother interrupted

"Why are you sorry little monster?" Touya asked.

"I'm not a monster." Sakura mentioned offhandedly before continuing with Aria. "I feel like its my fault this happened to you. It was my feather after all."

"Sakura, it's not your fault." Aria sighed. "And anyway, I wouldn't trade any of it for anything." Aria laughed cynically. "Well, almost anything." She amended. Sakura looked at Aria with understanding.

"That's how you got here isn't it?" Sakura whispered. Aria nodded sadly.

"My price for coming here was the memories I'd gathered over the whole time I've been with them." She said sadly. "But let's get onto what is really important: your feather!" She said with new enthusiasm.

The princess let out a small 'Oh' of surprise as she remembered. She called for her brother and Yukito to come over and she took Mokona into he arms again.

The feather slowly came out of Mokona's mouth, but before Sakura could take the feather Touya snatched it away.

"Hey!" Sakura yelled trying to take her feather from her brother's grasp. The young king held the object above his head, far out of his sister's reach, no matter how far she jumped.

"How do we know its safe?" Touya asked incredulously.

"How do we know it's safe?" Sakura asked in an angered voice, "Do you even know how I found half of these things, Touya? You don't know what I went through then." She took a deep breath and began to calm down a little. "I have gotten my feathers from so many terrible, just horrible places. And then when one shows up on a silver platter, with absolutely no danger involved-and Mokona's even here-and you decided that its not safe!" She finished accusingly.

Touya took a step back, and leaned against Yukito who was behind him. Aria notices the shorter man take hold of Touya's hand in reassure.

"Sorry." Touya mumbled. "I guess, I didn't think about that." Sakura's face melted back into a sad smile as she forgave her brother.

She took the feather in her hands and took a deep breath.

"It's been so long." Sakura said to herself, and Aria knew she was referring to the time that had passed since the last time she took in one of her memories.

The girl closed her eyes and pushed the feather closer to her chest, which began to ripple like water, as the feather sank into Sakura with a faint glow. The princess sighed and collapsed into Aria's arms, who gently set the girl down on the floor.

Touya came over and picked up his sister. He gave Aria a small smile. "I'll take her to her room." He said softly.

Aria watched him leave, followed by Yukito. And soon Aria found herself alone again. Mokona landed on Aria's shoulder and the girl reached up to pet the creature absently. She moved to the balcony of the throne room and looked out a the desert sunset. The sun was already sinking, painting the sky in golds and pinks. It was beautiful. And below her, Aria could see the people of Clow, still bustling around, and their happy voices rose up and filled Aria's ears with a far away chatter.

Aria felt a sudden sadness well up inside her, threatening to burst into tears. Aria didn't want to forget, she loved this adventure so much. She felt a warm tear run down her cheek, and then another. Soon Aria was crying, the tears running down her face silently, for she wouldn't let herself be loud.

Mokona moved to dry her tears, but Aria stopped her before she could.

"No." Aria managed and shook her head. "I want to keep my tears. They remind us that we're human." She turned to face the pork bun. "You know, I never felt any shame in crying. It might be silly at times, but it doesn't mean you're weak, if anything it shows that you're strong enough to let yourself care. It also helps us remember we can feel. Helps us remember that we have emotions." She tapered off and looked back over to the sunset.

She still didn't want to lose all this

She played through the events of the last few days, remembering it all in detail. She would miss it, but then, she would even know it was gone.

A long time passed before she spoke again. She had watched the sun disappear behind the horizon and tried not to think about how fitting if was that so soon, her memories would vanish, just like the sun had.

"We should be going shouldn't we?" Aria asked. Mokona nodded her sad softly and began let her wings out.

"Wait! Wait!" Called a familiar voice from inside, and soon Sakura came running through the doors to the balcony, slightly out of breath.

Mokona stopped what she was doing and drifted softly into Sakura's arms.

"Don't you want to know what I remembered. I figure they told you they were my memories and, well can I tell you what it was?" Sakura asked.

"Of course you can." Aria said softly. Sakura touched the necklace she was wearing. It was a simple gold chain with a small pendent that matched her eyes on it. The pendant was in the shape of a feather strangely enough

"I remembered this necklace. Yukito got it for me on my twelfth birthday. I wore it every day for a month, but then Syaoran told me that Yukito had out a protective charm on it, and after that I refused to wear it. Yukito was sad, but he still forgave me." She looked up at Aria.

"It's funny how something so small and seemingly insignificant can affect you so much." She said.

Sakura then walked up to Aria and hugged her. Aria hugged her back and tried not to cry.

"Thank you so much for that, you have no idea what it means to me." She whispered to Aria. They parted and Mokona resumed her process of dimension crossing.

Aria waved goodbye to Sakura before the girl disappeared from sight. It was only as Aria found herself once again in the space between worlds that she notices that she was wearing Sakura's necklace.

By the time Aria got back, Kyle had returned to his house, and the three travelers were left to wait until Aria returned.

As Aria walked into her house, she was met by Fai. He looked down at her and smiled a sad smiled.

They were all ready now. Dressed in their original clothes and standing in front her her cherry tree, just as she had found them. Even though the sun had already set in Clow, the sun was still illuminating the sky here. The fading light cast long shadows on the ground and bathed the world in orange light.

She stared at the three of them as they looked at her in return. She said her farewells with tears in her eyes. She wished them safety and good luck in the next world they found themselves in.

She knew she had only known them for a while, and that's he was just one person out of many they'd met on their long journey, but Aria wouldn't remember them when she woke up.

She walked up to Syaoran and hugged him. Syaoran didn't move for a moment unsure of how to react, but then he awkwardly patted Aria on the back before she pulled away.

Kurogane was next in line. Aria wasn't sure how to say goodbye to him, but the raven surprised her by pulling her into a rough hug and whispering, "Take care, kid." Aria clung to his large frame for a moment longer and then walked over to Fai.

Fai's eyes had tears in them, and so did Aria's.

"Aria-chan." The blonde whispered pulling the teen into a tight embrace. Aria returned the hug and cried into the man's chest for a while.

"Thank you, thank you so, so much." Aria whispered to him. The blonde only chuckled in reply. The man then held Aria at arms length. She was openly crying now. And she tried to smile at the man, but couldn't. Fai pulled her in for one last hug. And then Aria watched as they began to fade back away into the dimension hop.

And they were gone.

Still crying, Aria went up to her room and took her collection of Tsubasa manga out of her bookshelf and brought them downstairs. She sat herself down on her couch and began reading. She read until she fell asleep, savoring the last moments of her knowledge of the characters but reading about them once more.

She slept soundly, lying peacefully on her couch. And didn't wake, or dream the entire night. And at some point in the night, the memories left her.

All the memories she had collected in her time with the travelers left. All the emotions she had felt, the things she had seen, and the things she had done, were no more in Aria's brain.

She woke when the sun rose. The eager beams of light drawing Aria from a deep sleep. A surprisingly deep sleep for sleeping on a couch. She awoke with that odd feeling of having a long, detailed dream that was just beyond her memory.

She opened her eyes, and then shut them again. She had been so lazy these last two days. She really had to get busy if she wanted to accomplish anything before her parents got home.

She rolled to face the back of the couch, hoping the lack of light would let her fall back asleep. But as she rolled, something sharp hit her nose, and Aria opened her eyes to one of her many Tsubasa books, which she realized were all scattered around her.

The teen sighed and lifted herself up and began picking up the books. She then noticed that she was wearing a necklace. A necklace she had no memory of. It was a simple gold chain with a feather-shaped green pendent. It was odd to be wearing something she had no memory of. But even odder was the picture she found on the arm rest of the sofa.

There were seven people in the picture, plus one stuffed animal. Aria recognized herself and Kyle in the picture, but the other five were strangers. Strangers who looked an awful lot like the Tsubasa crew. She ran her fingers over the faces she could easily identify as Fai, Kurogane, and Syaoran. There were two other vaguely familiar people in the picture, but Aria only saw the three she recognized.

She was obviously in this picture, but no matter how hard she tries to remember, she couldn't remember ever taking this picture, or meeting these people.

Was this Kyle's idea of a sick joke? She saw herself front and center, looking up at the man who resembled Fai as it they had just shared a joke. Next to Fai was a very tall man who looked just like Kurogane, he had blood red eyes, and a deep scowl. On Fai's other side stood Syaoran, he was looking at the camera with a small, somewhat forced smile. Kyle was sitting in front of Syaoran with a goofy smile on his face. He was wearing his glasses, which was unusual. Next to Kurogane and Aria were two people Aria didn't recognize. One was almost as tall as Kurogane with short dark hair and a smirk on his face. The other was shorter and had longish light brown hair, he was smiling in a way that made him resemble a happy cat.

Aria didn't know anyone in the picture but Kyle, she wondered how this picture got here. Kyle probably used some fancy photoshop, or something.

Aria turned the picture over and saw something written on the back.

For my dear Aria-chan, was written in curling script, and under it, in the same writing it was signed Fai. And two other names were also on the back of the photo. In large, messy handwriting the name 'Kurogane' was written. And below that, it tiny, neat print, was

We'll miss you

-Syaoran.

Aria rolled onto her back, holding the picture above her. She stared at the faces in the photo, taking in the explicate detail. If these were cosplayers they were extraordinary.

She sighed and put down the picture. She had no idea where this had come from. Aria felt like Alice from Alice in wonderland, like she must have just experienced something life-changing that was slyly eluding her memory.

Sighing, Aria stuck the picture into a Tsubasa volume at random. She padded over to the kitchen and poured herself a glass of lemonade.

She situated herself on top of the counter instead if on a chair, and looked out at the already flawlessly blue stretching out through her window.

"Sky blue, just like Fai's eyes." She mused.

Last Note:

Well wow. It's over. I finished something! Really I have started sooooo many stories/books, but I've never finished anything before. 8D

-Super long AN warning-

I'm so sorry I didn't let Aria remember. I feel so wonderfully evil though, and it's stupid cuz I usually hate endings like that. And I also feel like that a lame half-assed ending.

So you probably won't be hearing anything from me for quite a long time. I have a really hard trimester and I'm just less motivated that summer is finally finally over, because it is raining like a lot, and it doesn't rain like a lot in the San Fran bay area just saying.

I really hope you liked it tough. This story is kinda like my baby; my first born child(even tho it kinda sucks)

I have a plot bunny being slowly nursed to life for a kurofai thing because I have been reading kurofai things and thy brainwash you into thinking that's normal type stuff.

Oh! To any rabid yaoi fangirls, if you want to was a really good REAL book with an adorable gay love story, read Aristotle and Dante discover the secrets of the universe. And aid u wanna read a really good-super-angsty-smexy-Tsubasa universe yaoi fic. Go back in time and find the Secrert series. It's rated M tho...

Anywho

I love all my readers soo soooooo much and you resolute reason this story is alive.

AND if anyone wants to throw me some ideas you can leave a comment or PM me or something, but I can't guarantee PM responsiveness.

PLease review last chapter! ;)

(Voldemort out b*tches)


	14. Alternate Chapter 13

**Author's note**

okay, I had a sudden inspiration to do this, and well...my real ending was a little half-assed and yea. SO i decided to write an alternate ending in which Aria gets to remember everything. But i am very out of practice writing these guys, I havent read tsubasa in forever. and i kinda lost my flair for writing happy Fai, and my brain only wanted him to be all depressed or wanted me to write him as The Doctor (nine specifically), so Theyre all gonna be a bit occ. But yea. here you go. it picks up right after Aria says goodbye to the gang and yea.

sorry for any typos, my spellcheck wasnt working

**Alternate Ending **

They landed in a heap in a field of startelingly green grass, and upon further investagation, the entire landscape appeared to be rather neon. Neon but very peaceful.

"One calm world after another." Mused Fai, "Whatever happend to all that life-threatening adventure?"

"You can't honestly miss it, Fai." Syaoran replied. Fai was about to answer when he Kurogane's eyes staring into him form behind. The mage turned around to meet his eyes.

"You did something, didn't you?" Kurogane asked accusingly, "I know you, and I know that you wern't just going to let her forget, you probably wouln't let her forget, probably felt like that whole thing was far too important, nevermind Watanuki and the freaking balance of the universe."

"My, my you have so little faith in me." Fai said teasingly, poking the ninja on the nose. "And if I did do somsething, but nobody caught me, and nobody suddenly died, I feel like I have every right to have tampered with the balance of the universe." Fai finished off his speach with a little smirk and began dancing along away from his compainions.

Syaoran stopped him. "But did you do something?" he asked simply, and Fai faltered, stopped dancing around and turned back to face his companions.

"I don't see why it is such a big deal. Watanuki did say that her memories would be the price of helping Sakura, but I see no harm if she remembers the in the end. And yes I did tamper. But I quess you already knew that." Fai sighed, and Syaoran almost told him that if it was really bothereing him so much, he didn't have to go into detail.

But Fai contiuned on his own, "It really isn't such a big deal. I mean, I don't even really know why I am so upset about all this. I guess I—I just sdon't even know. She wanted to remember, she as being strong, but she didm't want to forget. And I guess, I wanted to do something good, this time. This time I wasn't going to let everything just take it's course, I would help in a small way."

"But Fai, you've already done that. You've done plenty good." Syaoran whispered.

"I know!" Fai said with a sudden smile, snapping out of his pensive behavior, "Which is why I put a small little spell on that necklace Sakura gave her. Its just a little charm- it wasn't even that much work, the thing was already a protective charm- It will simply harness the memories when they are leaving her head, and keep hold of them. That way, when she wakes up, if she wants to remember, she will."

Syaoran looked pleased and turned around to take in his surroundings, but Kurogane was not so easily convinced.

"But what about Watanuki, and the price of travleing, you can't just cheat it." He argued.

"Oh, but I can...and I did!" Fai joked

"Yea, but doesn't this mess things up."

"In all honesty I don't think so. She still will think that she is going to lose her memories, and that is going to affect her memories in Clow, she will still have to experience the pain of thinking that she is going to lose all that, even if in the end she won't"

They turned to Syaoran and looked out in the distance with him.

"I guess that we'll just have to see."

Still crying, Aria went up to her room and took her collection of Tsubasa manga out of her bookshelf and brought them downstairs. She sat herself down on her couch and began reading. She read until she fell asleep, savoring the last moments of her knowledge of the characters but reading about them once more.

She slept soundly, lying peacefully on her couch. And didn't wake, or dream the entire night. And at some point in the night, the memories left her.

But the necklace glowed, and it held them back, it held them back safe. So even if they were out of mind, they weren't out of reach.

She woke when the sun rose. The eager beams of light drawing Aria from a deep sleep- a surprisingly deep sleep for sleeping on a couch. She awoke with that odd feeling of having a long, detailed dream that was just beyond her memory.

She opened her eyes, and then shut them again. She had been so lazy these last two days. She really had to get busy if she wanted to accomplish anything before her parents got home.

She rolled to face the back of the couch, hoping the lack of light would let her fall back asleep. But as she rolled, something sharp hit her nose, and Aria opened her eyes to one of her many Tsubasa books, which she realized were all scattered around her.

The teen sighed and lifted herself up and began picking up the books. She then noticed that she was wearing a necklace. A necklace she had no memory of. It was a simple gold chain with a feather-shaped green pendent. It was odd to be wearing something she had no memory of. She reached up to touch the green pendant, and as soon as her fingers touched the green gem, it came back.

It came rushing back. Flowing and flooding in, all the memories pushing themselves back into her head, back where they belonged.

_The strangers, the friends. Kyle and then Kyle not being Kyle. The feather, the journey, the silver room and the tree. Syaoran, Kurogane and Fai. And the others, she met Kazahaya and Rikuo, Saiga ad Kakei. And Sakura, and Sakura-_

She wasn't supposed to remmeber this. She knew that- _remebered that._ But she still did, and that explained the picture that was lying right next to her

"Well that was sudden" She mumbled to herself. Her head was a little sore, like a lingering head ache. Picking up the photo, she moved to the kitchen. She sat on the counter, and examined the photograph.

She smiled at the picture, it was so candid and real in her memory. Everyone suspended for an instant, with no thought of anything that was to come. She turned it over and smiled at the mesages. "We'll miss you" form Syaoran, Kurogane simply wrote his name, but Fai. "I hope you remember" was all that was written in his curling writing.

She felt a sudden sadness that Fai would never know that she did remember. He'd just have to believe. Aria suddenly realized that it must have been Fai who had made her remember, of course it was him. He had to have charmed the necklace, or something.

And she had to call Kyle.

He answered the phone on the last ring, sleep in his voice.

"What is it, Aria? I had a big day yetserday."

"I remember, Kyle. All of it. We certainly did have a hell of a day yesterday."

There was silence for a long time, and a sharp intake of breath.

"But how?" He breathed.

"Fai" shse responded simply.

"That tricky bastard. He tricked the system." Kyle said with a slight chuckle.

"He arent you gald I remember?"

"Of course I am. But you really remember? You remember all of it?"

"Yea. I remember."

FIN 2.0


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